The Visiting Artists Program resource guides contain upcoming speakers' biographies, articles, video and audio content, related publications in the Flaxman Library, and additional online resources. These guides may be used in the classroom in preparation for the event, research, or post-lecture discussion.
Linda Sormin: Tuesday, April 21, 6:00–7:30 p.m. CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation services.
Join us for a lecture by artist Linda Sormin followed by an audience Q&A.
Linda Sormin’s ceramic and mixed media sculptures and site-responsive installations embody vulnerable and fragmented parts of human experience. Since the early 2000’s, Sormin has established a distinct visual and material language, using raw clay, fired ceramics, found objects, and interactive methods. She integrates writing, video, sound, and hand-cut paintings with clay, metal, and wood. Sormin’s research and writing cast light on how her work has always been influenced—though at times unwittingly—by cultural practices in her family histories rooted in Thailand, China, and Indonesia.
Recent exhibitions include large scale installations in Ceramics in the Expanded Field: Sculpture, Performance and the Possibilities of Clay at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2021–23) and Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2023). Linda Sormin: Uncertain Ground, her first solo museum exhibition, is currently on view at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto through April 12. Her work is included in private and public collections including the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Gardiner Museum, Toronto; CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Middelfart, Denmark; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Sormin lives and works in New York City and is a professor of Studio Art at New York University.
Image Credit: Linda Sormin. Photo by David Schmitz
At the newly renovated Gardiner Museum, a ravishing installation explodes with kaleidoscopic effect
Joshua Chong | Toronto Star | December 7, 2025
A new era of clay and connection — inside the Gardiner Museum’s once in a generation transformation
Toronto Star | November 6, 2025
Perpetual Ungroundedness: A Conversation with Linda Sormin*
Jonathan Goodman | Sculpture, vol.44 (5) | p.60-71 | September/October 2025
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Interview with Linda Sormin
Beatrice Helman | maake magazine | 2024
Symbol of Substance: “Ceramics in the Expanded Field” at MASS MoCA
Janet Koplos | Art in America | March 24, 2022
Portals of Hope and Ruin: Linda Sormin’s recent sculpture
Julia Couzens | Medium | August 23, 2020
Life in Different Cultures Influenced Visiting Artist Sormin
Eric Kopp | Hamilton News | February 25, 2019
Artist Linda Sormin Connects to Hokusai
MFA Boston | 3:46 min.
Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics
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The international ceramics scene is enjoying the highest profile it has had for many years. Breaking the Mould looks at ceramic artists working within this versatile medium. Drawing on the rich history of pottery these artists are pushing the techniques, objectives and perceptions of the medium into new, exciting territory. The book profiles the work of over 70 ceramicists, including Suzanne King, Simon Fell, Grayson Perry, Barnaby Barford, Carina Ciscato and Amy Houghton. Their work ranges from interpretations of utilitarian pots, to abstract sculpture and a revisioning of kitch porcelain ornaments, all of which are brought to life in beautiful colour reproductions. Essays by prolific makers and academics look at the history and inspirations behind the medium today. Following in the footsteps of New Directions in Jewellery, Fashioning Fabrics and The Cutting Edge of Wallpaper, Breaking the Mould is a definitive overview of a craft scene that is simultaneously building upon and breaking with its roots, and in doing so creating a brave new future for itself.
Possibilities & Losses: Transitions in Clay
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Hot Clay: Sixteen West Coast Ceramic Artists
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Contemporary Clay and Museum Culture
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This groundbreaking book is the first to provide a critical overview of the relationship between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice in museum culture. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections, with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. In recent years museums have provided the impetus for cutting-edge artistic practice, either as a response to particular collections, or as part of exhibitions. But the question of how museums have staged contemporary ceramics and how ceramic artists respond to museum collections has not been the subject of published research to date. This book examines how ceramic artists have, over the last decade, begun to animate museum collections in new ways, and reflects on the impact that these new initiatives have had in the broad context of visual culture. Ceramics in the Expanded Field is the culmination of a three-year AHRC funded project, and reflects its major findings. It brings together leading international voices in the field of ceramics, research undertaken throughout the project and papers delivered at the concluding conference. By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions and the dialogue between ceramics and museological practice, this book will bring focus to an area of museology that has not yet been theorized, and will contribute to policy debates and art practice.
Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground
Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground is the culmination of over 20 years of remarkable exploration and innovation, bringing together clay, sculpture, video, sound, hand-cut watercolour painting, and digital fabrication in a multi-sensory environment that asks how life in the modern, cosmopolitan city can coexist with memories and experiences of our ancestral traditions. Currently on view through April 12, 2026.
Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.
SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98).