Opening Discussion for Accompanied

Join the artists for a conversation marking the opening of the virtual exhibition Accompanied: The Artworks of Marilyn Pappas and Jill Slosburg-Ackerman.

This exhibition presents a pair of artists whose work was transformed by an abiding friendship. Pappas and Slosburg-Ackerman, both fellows at Radcliffe’s Bunting Institute in the 1980s, have sustained a conversation over four decades about artistic endeavor, studio practice, and pedagogy. The artists were members of the founding group of the Brickbottom Artists Building—one of the country’s first artist-developed live-work buildings—and are professors emeriti at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. They have worked in adjoining studios for more than 30 years and have taught generations of artists.

This virtual exhibition, captured from the studios of Pappas and Slosburg-Ackerman, reflects on how their artistic practices have been shaped by a decades-long friendship working in close proximity. What are the aesthetic and political possibilities of friendship, particularly in relation to women’s art? In friendship, we see a model of collectivity that is based not in the family or state, but in natural affinities—a mode of reciprocity and exchange that resists easy codification and offers the potential of liberatory politics.

Accompanied: The Artworks of Marilyn Pappas and Jill Slosburg-Ackerman is on view online beginning September 22, 2020.

Event Video