Akashi’s talk will focus on her new commission, a multipart sculpture to be installed in the east meadows, facing toward campus. This will be the first opportunity to learn about the details of this project, which brings together new sculptures that are at once botanical and ecological, with a placement and scale that will invite visitors to create new relationships with the forests and plants in their daily environment. 

The lecture will be held in the Williams Inn ballroom at 101 Spring St. in Williamstown, beginning at 6 p.m. A reception will precede the lecture at 5 p.m.

Reservations requested here.

About the artist

Kelly Akashi was born in 1983 in Los Angeles. She received a BFA from Otis College of Art & Design in 2006 and an MFA from the University of Southern California in 2014. She also studied at the prestigious Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Städelschule) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2010. Akashi was the Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School for 2025. Recent solo exhibitions include Kelly Akashi–Converging Figures, Fondazione Furla Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, Italy (13 September–December 8 2024), and Kelly Akashi: Encounters at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, USA (September 30, 2023–June 15, 2024). Her 10-year survey, Formations, which began at the San José Museum of Art in 2022, travelled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and then to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through 2024.

Akashi’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, USA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA, USA; Sifang Museum, Nanjing, China, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and X Museum, Beijing, China, among others.