Ritual: Form and Function in Scholarly and Artist Practices

This conversation and workshop series explored the relationship between artistic and scholarly work and the form and function of rituals in artistic and scholarly practices. Ritual brought together an interdisciplinary group of six graduate students, Henry exhibiting artists, and UW faculty in dialogue around ways to engage traditions, confront violent legacies, build worlds, and rewrite narratives through arts and scholarship. The series offered a space to learn from each other’s creative practices and the ways in which they instill these practices in their academic work, and vice-versa. 

Each session in the Ritual series paired UW faculty members with exhibiting artists, who exchanged ideas about and methods for how they incorporate rituals in their work. In their co-facilitated session with the graduate students, faculty and artists guided the group in conversations and activities that engaged their ideas of ritual and ritual practice. The overall goal of these sessions was to facilitate communal learning as participants talked with one another about their creative practices and the underlying themes and philosophies that inform them, as well as to collect tools, skills, and ways of thinking about ritual to direct toward scholarly and artistic practices.  

Meditation Practices and Transcendence
Sculptor ektor garcia with Naomi Bragin, Assistant Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell 

Transcendence as a Process of Connecting to Ancestral Realms 
Dancer, choreographer, and educator Alicia Mullikin with Michelle Habell-Pallán, Professor in the Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies Department, UW Seattle 

Touch, Ritual, and the Care Work of Science 
Artist and educator Patty Chang and feminist cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis, with Cleo Wölfle Hazard, Assistant Professor, School of Marine & Environmental Affairs, UW Seattle 

Repertoire as Embodied Knowledge, Archiving and Research 
Black Collectivity out of Necessity (movement artists Akoiya Harris, David Rue, and marco farroni) with Jasmine Mahmoud, Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Performance Studies in the Drama Department, UW Seattle 

Learn more about the co-facilitators of each session.

Read a description of each Ritual session compiled by Brittney Frantece, Artist Fellowship Coordinator and PhD candidate in English at the University of Washington.

Amy Hirayama, Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell 
Chari Glogovac-Smith, DXArts at UW Seattle 
Jack Flesher, School of Music at UW Seattle 
Levin Kim, Information School at UW Seattle 
Bobbi Kindred, Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies at UW Seattle 
Caitie Sheban, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at UW Seattle

Ritual: Form and Function in Scholarly and Artistic Practice was developed within The Artist Fellowship Program at the Henry Art Gallery. This program intends to advance artistic inquiry through the mutual exchange between Henry exhibiting artists and the larger University of Washington community. It is designed as a generative program that promotes dynamic collaboration and facilitates artistic development, aligning the Henry's commitment to innovation and inquiry with the University's standing as a leader in research. The 2022 pilot year of the Artist Fellowship Program was made possible by the Jones Endowed Fund for the Arts.