Concepts and Challenges: AAC Resident Artist Rachel Schmidt’s Forgotten Futures
After a successful IndieGogo campaign AAC Resident Artist Rachel Schmidt was able to put on what she said is “the most ambitious exhibition of my artwork that I have ever undertaken.” She raised more than 100% of her goal to fund her solo exhibition Forgotten Futures at Cultural DC’s Flashpoint Gallery.
In hopes of learning (and sharing) her secret to success, we asked Rachel two questions, and here’s what she had to say:
What is the concept of the show?
Forgotten Futures is a multimedia exhibition that explores the approaching myth of the last elephant. Set 500 years in the future, the artwork utilizes the elephant as a fantastical protagonist to examine the impact of our growing urban wilderness. Each piece represents a different stage in the elephant’s life and they work in chorus to complete the narrative.
What were the challenges of developing and mounting a solo show?
My main challenge is time, finding the time to create what I want to see and experience.
Thinking through the artwork and allowing my imagination to wander is the easy and fun part, it’s really finding the work/life balance that I struggle with.
About the Artist:
Rachel Schmidt received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art and her BFA in Textile Design from the University of Kansas. Rachel studied contemporary art and the textile trade in Istanbul, Turkey on a Walters Travel Grant before moving to Warsaw, Poland in 2008 where she helped organize an art exhibition of foreign artists in an experimental gallery space. She is currently an Exhibits Specialist at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Recent exhibitions in the Washington, DC area include Hillyer Art Space, DCAC, Artisphere, Arlington Arts Center, and Brentwood Artist Exchange Center. Her most recent work, City Fields, can be seen at 5th and K Streets NW – a commission for the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District to create a temporary public installation along the fence line of a development site for an office and retail project.
