Lydia Kern: PASSAGES Exhibition Closing Party!

Celebrate the last night to experience PASSAGES, Lydia Kern's immersive, site-specific art installation with live pipe organ music performed by Jenny Bower, followed by an artist talk and discussion with Lydia. Jenny Bower is a scientist who researches weathering dynamics in soil and is one of the leading organists in Vermont. They have created a compilation of pre-existing organ works inspired by PASSAGES. 

Music begins at 4:15pm and the Artist Talk begins at 5:30.

Toccata and Fugue in C major, BWV 545   -Johann Sebastion Bach

Chorale prelude and fugue on ‘O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid’   -Ethel Smyth

Trois improvisations  -Jean-Louis Florentz

1. Prélude
2. Petit Canon
3. Improvisation

Chant des fleurs  -Nadia Boulanger

Prayer (An Offertory) -George Walker

La Nativité: VII. Jesus accepte la souffrance -Olivier Messiaen

Fantasia in G, BWV 572 -Johann Sebastian Bach

Muscian's Bio:

Jenny Bower's enthusiasm for music has led her to concertize in the US, Canada, and China. In 2017 she was named the Vermont Organist of the Year. Since graduating from Oberlin Conservatory with degrees in organ performance, historical performance, and geology, she has gone on to pursue a Ph.D. in Soil Science at UVM and continues to perform music across Vermont.

Artist Bio:

Lydia Kern creates sculptural installation work within an interconnected web of logistical, conceptual and emotional support from peers in Vermont and beyond. The land she receives many of her materials from, lives and works on is unceded Abenaki land. Her work revolves around themes of love and grief, placing and stitching found objects and materials into new relationships with each other. Lydia has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, the Lab Program in Mexico City, the Generator, and New City Galerie. She graduated from the University of Vermont in 2015 with bachelor's degrees in social work and studio art.

Artist Statement: 

"My work honors the loss and tension that transformative processes require through sculptural installation works that are in relationship to the body in scale and material. My process reflects on acts of care as I collect, reclaim, and prepare materials and objects to exist in new relationships with one another, creating a weighty yet ephemeral material poetic. My current body of work is influenced by meditations on love and grief, mysticism, Celtic mythology, quilting bees and rose gardens. Together, the works form a large physical poem the viewer can walk within, composed of large sewn portals or reliquaries. These works embody multiple translations: from emotion to language, language to material, and material back to emotion for the viewer. My work has led me to forage in dumpsters, compost piles, apothecaries, free boxes, fabric stores, and florist shops. Though I am drawn to certain materials because of personal associations and experiences I have with them, the final pieces create spacious visual metaphors on which the viewer can project their own experiences." Glitter, Bones & Solidarity: A Conversation with Lydia Kern- Seven Days VT