Celebrating an Inaugural Year
Early days of construction at the Lab, 2021.
Lost and Found Lab is celebrating its first year of operation this month. It's a milestone filled with the lingering spirit of seven extraordinary artists in residence who have taken time to be at Lost and Found Lab — to refine their personal vision, to rest, recuperate, and to ponder what is possible. The Lab continues to serve as an incubator of creative thought and reflection.
An unexpected theme this past year was the Year of the Pivot for all our resident artists. Lost and Found Lab 2021/2022 provided space for artists to contemplate the possibility of a new chapter in life and/or work -- some in professional life, some involved with the execution of specific works of art with tangible deadlines. There were closures of academic pursuits, and certainly trials of new ideas/concepts tested, pondered, prodded and discussed.
Naomi LIechty's work reaches around the Lab.
And now Lost and Found Lab will follow the lead of its AIR alums to pivot itself into its own new chapter. Year Two will focus on further refining the mission, developing new forms of programming, experimenting with sound art, and continuing to celebrate and support a new collection of artists -- all recommended and chosen by the residents who came before them.
Clockwise from top left: Trina M. Robinson, Marion Belanger, Yukie Ohta, Naomi Liechty, Anthony Elms, Katarina Jerinic (right) with Bruce Museum staffers Dr. Daniel Ksepka (center) and Sean Murtha (left), Annie Weatherwax (with Josie Merck).
The Lab's 2021/22 artists delved in deep, engaging with material ranging from the palettes held in the archives of color theorist Faber Birren, manuscripts of Harlem Renaissance icons including Zora Neale Hurston and Carl Van Vechten, to cartography, stereo cards, and 19th-century field journals from the Wheeler Survey of the U.S. West. Words and text from decades and centuries past continue to percolate in the work of the artists-in-residence at the Lab.
Thank you Annie Weatherwax, Anthony Elms, Marion Belanger, Yukie Ohta, Trina Michelle Robinson, Naomi Liechty and Katarina Jerinic — for laying down a patina of creative thoughts and visions that all our future artists will build upon when they set up their temporary studio here in years to come.
Gatherings at the Lab
We also wish to thank the following cultural institutions for providing inspiration and fostering inquiry while generously welcoming our artists to use their vast and compelling collections: The Beinecke Library and Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University, the Greenwich Historical Society, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Bruce Museum, and New York Public Library’s Picture Collection.
Photo by Michael Biondo
And last but in no way least, we send heartfelt kudos to the architectural team of Joeb Moore and Partners for receiving the 2022 Connecticut AIA Design Award for Lost and Found Lab. A day does not go by when the light, space and tranquility of the Lab’s design is not recognized, savored and appreciated with every turn.
