Current and Upcoming Visiting Artists

Ruby Que

In Residence: September 3 through October 16, 2024

Ruby Que is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on site-specific intervention and expanded cinema performance. In their work they open portals and create hauntings. Many projects grapple with absence: the missing person, the deserted homeland, the obsolete media, the traumatic memory. With video, sculpture, and writing, they attempt to give shape to what lies within and beyond the perceived emptiness. Drawing on their lived experience as a queer, itinerant immigrant, they meditate on yearning and find home in transit. They believe in the power of collective myth-making, and engage collaborators and/or viewers as co-conspirators towards liberation.

They have exhibited and performed at Kavi Gupta, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Elastic Arts, Roman Susan, Comfort Station (Chicago, IL), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY), SOLOS (Karlsruhe, Germany) amongst other spaces nationally and internationally. They have been awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, and are currently a HATCH resident at Chicago Artists Coalition. Their work has been featured in the Chicago Reader, Performance Review Journal, Sixty Inches from Center, and Newcity Magazine named them a 2023 Breakout Artist. Que holds an M.F.A. in Film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University.

Lecture: noon, Wednesday, September 25 at University Galleries, Uptown Normal.

Alberto Rigau

In Residence: October 28 through November 1, 2024

With over 21 years in practice, Alberto Rigau crafts and conceptualizes brands, exhibits, wayfinding systems, publications, photographic projects, and environmental graphics. Today he serves on the core team of the People’s Graphic Design Archive as Education Liaison. As a former co-chair of AIGA’s Design Educators Steering Committee, he collaborates with nationwide design educators in developing content and programming to further academic research, teaching practices, and conversations within the field. Alberto has a master’s degree from North Carolina State University College of Design and currently engages the field from his home studio in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Lecture: "I confess, I don’t know what I’m doing, butt I’m doing it anyway"
noon, Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at University Galleries, Uptown Normal

In a world where uncertainty often feels like a personal failure, the talk “I confess, I don’t know what I’m doing, butt I’m doing it anyway” embraces the unknown as a vital part of the creative and professional journey. This presentation explores the power of taking risks, making mistakes, and moving forward without all the answers. It is a candid reflection on how the fear of not knowing can be transformed into a driving force for innovation and growth. A session that celebrates courage, resilience, and the surprising benefits of embracing uncertainty.