Sculptor, ecologist, and writer Ana Flores creates art and installations connecting communities through a deep sense of place rooted in the ways place and geography inform who we are. Her enduring interest in how geography shapes us comes from her own experience of displacement as a refugee from Cuba who came to the United States with her family. As Artist-in-Residence for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency at the headquarters in Charlestown, Rhode Island, the artist’s research about the history of that site led to her discovery of the state’s history with slavery. In 2006 the erased history of slavery in Rhode Island converged with Flores’s Cuban history in an unlikely setting, the woodlands of Southern Rhode Island near to the sacred land of the Narragansett people. This discovery coincided with a project the artist was working on based on a return trip back to Cuba. Flores will discuss how her research for both converged in the series, The Island Draws Me, and a later collaborative installation at the Center for Justice and Slavery at Brown University, Makers Unknown, Material Objects and the Enslaved.

Ana Flores is an award-winning sculptor, ecologist, writer and curator based in Rhode Island and Nova Scotia dealing with issues of displacement, memory, and land. Focused on cultural and ecological narratives, her sculptures, park designs, and environmental designs begin with long walks and explorations into each unique landscape. A graduate of RISD, Flores has taught environmental art and design at the University of New Haven, Bryant University and RISD, where she co-created an innovative course on Arts and Healing. As an educator and art-in-residence, Flores has taught workshops at diverse institutions, creating bridges between the arts and healthcare, the arts and the environment, and the arts and science. For two decades she has been promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and groundbreaking collaborations among the arts, sciences and humanities, working with communities to provide space for community dialogues, such as “Poetry of the Wild,” which traveled throughout the United States, inspiring meaningful engagement with the land, combining the use of poetry, art, and community collaboration. In 2017 she was an artist-in-residence at Brown University, doing research and a sculptural installation on the interconnections of slavery between Rhode Island and Cuba. Flores's work is held in private, corporate and institutional collections throughout the United States and abroad including exhibitions at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Center for Cuban Studies, NY, Fitchburg Museum, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, and RISD Museum of Art. Her projects include working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Lifespan Hospitals (Providence); Yale University Medical Center; Rhode Island Foundation; University of New Haven; and El Museo del Barrio in New York.

Presented by THAD-H258 Narrative Interventions: Hidden Histories in Museums and Archives, Liberal Arts Department. Support for this lecture series provided by The RISD Humanities Fund.