Award-winning artist Harriet Bart will discuss her abiding interest in the personal and cultural expression of memory in her mixed-media work.

Bart recently collaborated with Boston College professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies Maxim D. Shrayer on the creation of an artist book based on Shrayer’s translation of I SAW IT (1942), a powerful poem by Jewish-Russian poet and early Holocaust witness Ilya Selvinsky.

Following a presentation by Bart about her work, Shrayer will join Bart in a conversation about making art from agony moderated by Burns Librarian Christian Dupont. Burns Library has acquired a copy of I SAW IT, which will be on display other Holocaust-related works.

Bart’s installations, objects, and books have been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Germany. She has also completed more than a dozen public art commissions in the United States, Japan, and Israel. Based in Minneapolis, Bart has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, NEA Arts Midwest, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Since 2000, she has published more than a dozen fine-press artists books and won two Minnesota Book Awards.

I SAW ITwas recently featured in a BC News article.

Light refreshments will be served following the program. The event is free and open to the public. Registration not required.