Dana Smessaert

MFA ’20 Photography

Dana Smessaert is a seer of the liminal. Through family structures and conflicting values growing up in post-industrial South Bend, Indiana, she understood from a very early age the inconsistencies in what is said and what is. She graduated from the Herron School of Art and Design of Indiana-Purdue University of Indianapolis with a BFA in Integrated Studio Practice and minors in Art History and Anthropology. There are many aspects to Dana’s practice, her experiences with her co-workers and friends are, above all, a driving force to illustrate the inconsistencies of the world around them. Pursing her MFA degree at East Carolina University of Greenville, North Carolina, she explores these cultural and academic structures that dictate the stories of others.

“Through family structures and conflicting values growing up in post-industrial South Bend, Indiana, I understood from a very early age the inconsistencies in what is said and what is. A relishing in neighborhoods that only have ruins of immigrants clustering and the idea the American dream is for everyone. I see the liminality of these landscapes that are entrenched with patriarchal, social, and historical ideologies that still mold everyday life. It is these authors who change and shape the narratives of the people to become disenfranchised demographics. “History is written by the victor,” an infamous saying, but so is, “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” Victors write these narratives, all cultures, stories, and wisdom that are not westernized are lost in their entirety. In my research, I am searching for these stories and using my artistic practice as an agency to reexpose these higher powers that have robbed our global history of depth. This exploration has lead my practice into the hard to navigate waters of cultural appropriation and constant questioning of my privilege as a white woman. My work extracts those questions and cultural concerns. It manifests them into bodies of work that target the institutions that allow me, and all other artists have cultural capital and agency. Inspiration for these stories and people all start with my experiences with co-workers in the service sector and friends. These are, above all, a driving force for me to illustrate the inconsistencies of the world around them.”

An Obligation to do One’s Best
An Obligation to do One’s Best is an exploration of myth and reality at home in a small southern town. The artist is calling into question whose history are we referencing when it comes to art, economics, and culture. In these liminal landscapes, the viewer/spectator becomes a collaborator in the mythos of racism in the Southern narrative—the denial of not only its racist past but also the strides of the Civil Rights protests. The research explores the agency of history and cultural capital in my work through a site-specific installation with images, video, sculpture, and sound. Creating a liminal landscape of the South through my readings both physical and metaphysical of its trauma, history, and understanding the “…south as a noun that behaves like a verb.” (Romine) The South is entwined with history, politics, economics, and racism, a link that can never be severed, my work is in constant motion with classic literature, history, cinema, demographics, and philosophy. The American South, the house, the name, and the family’s history are complicated and seemingly transparent to those on the outside. However, the stories of those who live here still exist in the space between myth and reality.

An Obligation to do One’s Best, 2020

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