INSTITUTE FOR DOCTORAL STUDIES
IN THE VISUAL ARTS
by Angela Whitlock (PhD, 2024) and Kate Farrington (PhD, 2022), co-chairs of the IDSVA Alumni Association’s 1st annual two-day panel: Repair, held at the Eventi Hotel in New York City, April 25-27, 2025
The IDSVA Alumni Association organized a pop-up exhibition of artworks and performances by alumni in conjunction with a two-day panel centered around the theme of repair. In keeping with IDSVA tradition, the theme provided a broad scope for submissions that allowed presenters to draw from prior coursework. The theme also provided an opening for discussion and reflection during an especially pivotal time in our history, both in general and in relation to artistic and philosophical practice.
The two-day panel tackled the theme of Repair from two angles: Towards an Ecological Ontology, and Repair within Communities. However, as the two panel chairs received and discussed submissions, it became clear that the initial intention to separate the theme of Repair into these two distinct categories was challenging. What became evident is that communities and landscapes are inextricably linked. Communities shape ecological landscapes, and ecology shapes communities. Repairing the ecological landscape is often done through and for communities, and ecological landscapes often inspire communities toward reparative action. Ultimately, decisions on which panel to place presenters were based on which component they emphasized within their submissions.
The first panel, Towards an Ecological Ontology, was co-chaired by Dr. Kate Farrington and Dr. Nancy Wellington Bookhart (PhD, 2022). The presenters in this panel were Dr. Terri Pyle (PhD, 2025), Stanley Bermudez (Cohort ’21), and members of the Plant Contingent: Dr. Ana Fernandez Miranda-Texidor (PhD, 2023), Dr. Samantha Jones (PhD, 2024), Dr. María Patricia Tinajero (PhD, 2023), and Dr. Kate Farrington. From the dreamy surfaces of ocean waves as they crest and carry surfers into harmony with the earth’s rhythms, to cold and cosmically ordered winterscapes experienced either in film or in person that connect us to cyclical mysteries, these striking presentations showcased the vast varieties of landscapes available for ecological thinking.
The first presentation, Ecstatic Repair Under the Winter Skies, delivered in four parts by four members of the Plant Contingent, poeticized the interconnectedness of mycorrhizal networks and celestial galaxies in winter through an interdisciplinary, collective approach, blending artistic, philosophical, and ecological research. The Plant Contingent is an IDSVA-formed art collective that entangles human and plant ontologies to invent new forms of philosophical-praxis. Existing as a community of artist-philosophers, their contribution to the panel included a video component that was the result of a 10-day artist residency from January 2025.
Stanley Bermudez’s presentation, We’ll Meet Again, Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When explored Béla Tarr’s film The Turin Horse by emphasizing its stark landscape as a central force in shaping existential despair and futility. In particular, Bermudez examined how the barren, wind-ravaged environment can serve as an ecological reflection on abandonment, mirroring the character’s isolation and lack of community.
Finally, Terri Pyle’s presentation, Surfing as a Physiological Philosophy for Repair within Communities and/or, as Ecological Awareness of How the Ocean Repairs Us philosophically examined how the ocean, as a space beyond mortality and governance, provides veterans with a transformative encounter that fosters healing, repair, renewal, and reconciliation with post-war life. Referencing such work as the documentary Resurface, Pyle’s work emphasizes the therapeutic power of surfing within the oceanic landscape through the lens of the veterans community.
The second panel, Repair within Communities, was chaired by Dr. Angela Whitlock. The presenters were Dr. Heather Dunn (PhD, 2014), Lucas Dietsche (Cohort ’23), and Dr. Angela Whitlock. From the activist roots within street artist communities to the poignant narrative power of “prizines” within the prison community, to the stabilizing cultural presence heard from Detroit’s techno community through the pulsating sound that shapes the city, this panel journeyed through communities that create, resist, and transform. Much like the presentations in the first panel, they highlighted and strengthened the link between communities and the ecological landscape.
Heather Dunn’s presentation, Why Art & Care Can Save Us, argued that street artists use their work to highlight social and environmental issues, engaging a broad audience through public spaces and social media rather than formal art institutions. Her presentation explored the role of street art as activism that functions on the fringes of culture, emphasizing the relationship between the street art community and the environmental landscape as their canvas, while challenging both institutional frameworks and traditional aesthetics.
Lucas Dietsche’s presentation, Resisting Carceralizing (S)places through the Prisoner Zines: The Signification, Index, and Shifting through Adorno, Piepmeier, and Krauss situated the concept of “prizines,” a term that fuses zines with narratives from the prison community, as a form of both resistance and self-expression against systemic oppression. Dietsche emphasized prizines’ potential to expand political and aesthetic discourse within carceral spaces and to explore the fluidity of meaning within system-impacted environments. His idea of (s)place, blending space and place, commented on the ecological by considering how environmental destruction alters both the physical and symbolic aspects of places.
Angela Whitlock’s presentation, Reclaiming the Beat: the Detroit Techno Community and the Emancipation of Space chronicled how the Detroit techno community has historically played a central role in reclaiming and emancipating space within the city, using techno music as a tool for cultural repair and resilience. This presentation positioned the Detroit techno community as one that fosters non-hierarchy through participation, while examining how properties within techno music parallel the techno community and how both foster grassroots, DIY approaches to overcoming adversity. It also highlighted the lasting influence that early techno DJs had in shaping the genre toward its function as a vehicle for both social and cultural repair.
The panels brought the theme of Repair into a broader discussion and narrative regarding our historical trajectory and current political and social climate. Everyone present had the opportunity to reflect on how these topics perpetuate new ways of being with others.