Current and Upcoming

Upcoming Fall 2023 CVA Exhibit

Karen Bright
Within the Anthropocene

November 2 – December 6

Opening Reception with Karen Bright, November 2, 2023 from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Light bites and live music from RockIT
Open to the public and all Brookdale students, employees and alumni
Admission is free to the opening and CVA Gallery

WEEKLY EXHIBIT HOURS
Monday 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Tuesday 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Wednesday 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Thursday 9:00 a.m. – 12 noon; &  2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Sat. 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Closed Friday and Sunday
Closed Wednesday, Nov. 22 – Saturday, Nov. 25  for Thanksgiving Recess

WITHin the ANTHROPOCENE Events and Programming

Zen Meditation for Planet and Personal Healing
Nov. 9,  12:00 – 1:00 pm 

In anticipation of International Education Week and in connection with the Global Citizenship Project’s wellness theme the CVA Gallery is partnering with the BCC Wellness Center and the Cold Mountain Zen/Sangha to offer a community Zen Meditation for Planet and Personal Healing.

Open to the public and all Brookdale students, employees and alumni
CVA Gallery, Free admission

Encaustic Workshop for Brookdale students
Nov. 16, 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Open to Brookdale students
To register email eelorza@brookdalecc.edu

Encaustic Demo and Artist Talk with Karen Bright
Nov. 16, 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Open to the public and all Brookdale students, faculty, staff and alumni
Free admission

The events were made possible by the Visiting Artist Fund, a grant from CCOG, and support from Brookdale’s Art and Design Departments in the Humanities Institute.

STEM Institute lecture “What is the Anthropocene?”
November 30, Thursday, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

BCC Geology Adjunct Professor Tim Macaluso will give a lecture guided by student questions crowd-sourced by CVA Gallery Interns and Assistants to help us separate fact from fiction and better understand what the Anthropocene is and what that means for our future.

Open to the public and all Brookdale students, employees and alumni
CVA Gallery, Free admission

Closing Event

Living Room conversation on the Anthropocene
Dec. 5, Tuesday, 12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.

Mapping the room and collectively imagining action plans and ways of thinking/being.

Open to all Brookdale students, faculty, staff and alumni
Register at the door; Free admission

Within the Anthropocene includes encaustic, fresco, sculpture and graphic design work by Monmouth University professor emerita Karen Bright.

This exhibit opens with very literal representations of climate change through a series of infographic prints derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and the United States Naval Observatory data. Climate change is only one among many of the changes we are grappling with in the 21st century. As we often have in challenging times, we need the arts to help expand our consideration of these changes.

Bright’s encaustic work, such as After the Elephants and Monarch, address issues related to, but categorically different than, climate change, such as the increasing rate of mass extinction events due to the actions of humans. Her sculptural series, Still Water, created specifically for this exhibit, investigates ideas of water as the source and a great destroyer of life. All challenging pieces, but necessary for our time and future.

With this exhibit, we seek to create a space, and the possibility, that we can learn to live with these difficult ideas in a way that can help us foster a warranted sense of hope. A Community Healing Room will be incorporated in the gallery during this exhibit. It is offered as a respite, a place for reflection about how we imagine the health of the planet, our bodies and minds. We can see similar practices in the Hall of Remembrance that James Ingo Freed designed for the U.S. Holocaust Museum; The Contemplative Court in the National Museum of African American History and Culture; and the Brooklyn Museum’s Healing Room designed by their teen staff for the immigration focused exhibit Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven.

Within the Anthropocene is an opportunity to expand our imagination to consider a new, just and sustainable interrelationship between nature, planet, humans, non-human animals.

Karen Bright Bio and website.

CVA Gallery Contact

Elisa Elorza, Professor of Art
eelorza@brookdalecc.edu

Center for Visual Arts Gallery, Brookdale Community College
765 Newman Springs Road, Lincroft, NJ, parking lot #2