For the month of June 2016, Professor Shindelman was a resident at CEC ArtsLink in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1962, CEC ArtsLink promotes international communication and understanding through collaborative, innovative arts projects. And, although artists from Russia and other former Soviet Union countries have been participating in cultural exchange programs in the USA for over fifty years, 2016 is the first year that American artists were invited to Russia. Professor Shindelman and her collaborative partner, Nate Larson (faculty at MICA, Maryland Institute College of Art) were among those selected for this honor.

Shindelman and Larson spent a month in Russia, producing over sixty images for their on-going Geolocation series. For this project, the artists mine twitter for tweets that have GPS coordinates in them, and then make a photograph at the corresponding site, which they pair with the original tweet.  While in Russia, the artists also participated in the one of the country’s largest festivals: “Geek Picnic.” Serving as featured speakers, the artists created a site-specific piece “On the Utility of Glass: A Portrait of M. Lomonosov.” In so doing, they partnered with Dodd faculty Julie Spivey, who designed a large map with instructions for walking a trail within the park, whose curvilinear path effectively draws an invisible portrait of M. Lomonosov, the famous Russian historical figure after whom the piece is named.  

Read more about Shindelman’s Russian adventures on the CEC blog.