Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 12:00 PM
Marsh Room, Billings Library
48 University Place
University of Vermont
Steven Kostell, Assistant Professor of Design in UVM's Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, will recount selected creative activities from twenty years of hand papermaking, highlighting collaborations and community-centered practice that extends material inquiry as social engagement. His work incorporates arts-based social practice as a methodology in his creative research. He delves into material exploration and examines cultural craft traditions, drawing inspiration from the ethos of maker-culture. This inquiry informs both his perspective as a scholar and subsequent creative collaborations. The use of social practice within Kostell’s scholarship underscores the importance of community-building, knowledge-sharing, and sustainable approaches in his work and allows him to examine the profound social and cultural implications of craft and making. Kostell's Variables in love (love letters), is part of the current exhibit in Silver Special Collections, The Art of Hand Papermaking.
Steven Kostell is a visual artist and designer whose work is grounded in material-based production, exploring natural materials involving papermaking, printmaking, and artist books. Kostell leads the Biofiber Lab, a research lab that focuses on waste stream mitigation and regenerative material development through hand papermaking processes. Kostell’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at such venues as the Center for Book and Paper at Columbia College in Chicago, the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, the Center for Book Arts in New York, the Qijiang International Printmaking Festival in Chongqing, China, the Ozu Washi Gallery and the Oji Paper Museum in Tokyo, Japan, and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Dresden, Germany.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Silver Special Collections at uvmsc.uvm.edu or 802-656-2138.