Thursday, May 11, 2023
doors open 6pm, presentations begin at 6:30pm
$5-$10 suggested donation
at the University Museum of Contemporary Art
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Fine Arts Center Drive, Amherst
Presenting artists:
AJ Rombach
Jeff Kasper
Nima Nikakhlagh
Sara Smith
AJ Rombach (they/them) is an artist, curator and educator based in Massachusetts. AJ has an MFA from Boston University (2022) and a BFA from Boston University (2010.) They are a 2022 Walter Feldman Fellow. AJ is a founding member and former co-director of FJORD, an artist-run space in Philadelphia. They have been included in solo and group exhibitions at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, NY; Bentley University; Morgan Lehman, NYC; SPACEUS, Boston; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia; TSA, Philadelphia; Satellite Art Fair, Miami; and elsewhere. They have curated and helped organize exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, Miami + Boston. AJ has painted public murals in Costa Rica, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Boston and Minneapolis. They now live and work in the Connecticut River Valley area.
Jeff Kasper is an artist, writer, and educator. He works with the tools and techniques of design, contemplative practices, and community engagement, to create public art, publications, workshops, and participatory learning projects. His artworks center dialogical, reflective, and instructional texts, as well as pedagogical objects that prompt meditation, relationship building, and serious play. Based on his own lived experiences and observations, many of his projects explore topics of support, safety, and proximity. Kasper’s recent exhibitions have been presented internationally, including with New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Meta Open Arts, and Queens Museum, and his past public programs have been facilitated with BRIC, CUE Art Foundation, and moCa Cleveland. He is Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Art.
Nima Nikakhlagh is a multidisciplinary artist, native to Iran, who arrived in the United States in 2014. Most of his works are performance-based, and he perceives performance art as not only a form of visual art but much more, a social-political art form and a social-political art practice. Nima’s works have appeared in numerous locations such as Tehran; San Francisco Art Institute; AiOP Festival, NYC; the International VIDEOFORMES Festival, France; Torino, Italy, Passau, Germany; PAUSA: Impromptus Festival Brooklyn, NY; and Western Mass.
Sara Smith is a transdisciplinary choreographer and librarian. Sara creates speculative-documentary performances and other works that explore interconnection and the poetics and politics of embodied and archival research. Their working process is rooted in physical practices of micro-attention and transformation. Sara has a BA from Hampshire College, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MLS from Simmons College. Sara’s work has been seen and heard for over 25 years in recreation center basements, theaters, museums, and cloud-based platforms, among other spaces.