Cesar Cornejo invited to jury an exhibition at the Susquehanna Art Museum in Pennsylvania, USA
Dr Cesar Cornejo was recently invited to select works for the Susquehanna Art Museum’s 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs.
Located in Harrisburg, USA, the Susquehanna Art Museum (SAM) is central Pennsylvania’s only dedicated art museum. Every year since 2016, the museum has invited artists, curators, and educators to jury an annual exhibition responding to a given theme.
For Susquehanna Art Museum’s 9th Annual Juried Exhibition, artists were invited to submit works that explore subjects relating to the domestic, through an open call in the early part of 2025.
Following a selection process, juried by Cornejo, the result is an exhibition of work covering various interpretations of what is considered domestic – the architecture or design of homes, neighbourhoods and cities; domestic labour; gender and social roles; domestic and foreign policies; domesticity; boundaries and borders; indigeneity; political and interpersonal relations; and domestication.
Steven Pearson, Present/Absent – Home/Office. 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs, Susquehanna Art Museum, 2024. Photo by Rachel Barron.
Dr Cesar Cornejo is an Associate Professor in Fine Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and a Fulbright Fellow.
Cesar is an interdisciplinary artist and activist, and his work explores the relationship between art, architecture and society. He has been influenced by the experience of living and working in Peru, Japan, England and the USA, and is the founder of Puno MoCA.
Cesar said:
“In December 2023, I was invited to jury the 9th annual show at the Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.
“Following an open call, 383 submissions were received from artists from across the world – a significant increase from the average 200 entries that this annual exhibition receives. From this, I selected work by 21 artists for the show. The selection implied some hard decisions and many high quality works unfortunately did not make it into the show.
Jiyu An, Thinking of You. 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs, Susquehanna Art Museum, 2024. Photo by Rachel Barron.
“In the words of Bonnie Mae Carrow (former Director of Exhibitions at Susquehanna Art Museum), I was invited to be a juror because of my ‘(research) focus on architecture and social/political concerns in an international context’.
“With this in mind, it was interesting for me to see how the submissions offered a broad range of interpretations of the theme through approaches which included from the personal to the socio-political and historical, and finding avenues for expression in a broad range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, collage, photography, installation and video.”
From left: Stefani Byrd, Point Cloud.v001: Bird’s Eye View; Robin Miller, Poltergeist 12. 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs, Susquehanna Art Museum, 2024. Photo by Rachel Barron.
Two awards have been offered as part of the exhibition – the Juror’s Choice and Visitors Choice awards. Cesar said of the awards:
“The winner of the Juror’s Choice award was Mai Elbastawessy, Silent Language of Love. I selected it because of its high emotional and conceptual contents, its impeccable execution and the evocative yet strange atmosphere that it communicates.
“The Viewer’s Choice award winner will be announced shortly after voting closes on 20 December.”
From left: Thom Sawyer, Arc de Triomphe (Victory Column IV); Mai Elbastawessy, Silent Language of Love. 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs, Susquehanna Art Museum, 2024. Photo by Rachel Barron.
More information
The 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs opened on 9 October 2024 and runs to 5 January 2025.
Find out more about the show and the selected artists on the Susquehanna Art Museum website.
Feature image
Installation view of 9th Annual Juried Exhibition: Domestic Affairs, Susquehanna Art Museum, 2024. From left, the artists featured in the gallery are: Elizabeth Livingston, False Moon; Taylor Pilote, Warship; Marina Kuchinski, Like I’m Some Kind of Animal. Photo by Rachel Barron, Director of Education at Susquehanna Museum of Art.
