Lily Selthofner

Location:

Wisconsin

Area of Focus:

Interdisciplinary artist and researcher

Institution:

Columbia University

Lily Selthofner is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. She graduated from Columbia University in NYC with a BA in Anthropology and Dance, having studied abroad in Venice, Italy and Paris, France. Her thesis Moving with Water: Environmental Consciousness through Political Ecology and Somatic Healing examined water's properties through a dance lens, studying the importance of embodied, connective awareness in arts and activism. Artistically, Lily works with choreography, film, writing, and painting. As a Student Artist in Residence at the Movement Lab in NYC, she created multidisciplinary performances with ethnographic, collaborative methods to merge intellectual and emotional resonance in immersive, symbolic spaces. She grew up in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Topic of the research paper/ Abstract:

Maya Deren, a Ukrainian-born American pioneer of avant-garde and feminist film, developed a uniquely multidisciplinary practice as a dancer, poet, and anthropologist. Her films At Land and Meshes of the Afternoon are widely recognized, as is her ethnographic book Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. Yet, despite the abundance of literature on her work, she is rarely discussed in mainstream scholarship. Furthermore, the influence of her Ukrainian-American identity on her art and activism remains largely unexamined. This study aims to re-contextualize Deren’s work through the lens of the Ukrainian-American artistic legacy she is a part of, by analyzing the works of other multidisciplinary Ukrainian-American women artists. The research will examine how their art engages with immigrant identity and social justice, Ukrainian cultural heritage, and how their aesthetics and theoretical approaches parallel and diverge from Deren’s.