Artist Talk: Sam Van Aken

Join us for an evening of curiosity, creativity, and conversation about how art can shape the way we see our environment and one another.

Hosted in partnership with Small School, an art-based, alternative education platform featuring prominent national and international visiting artists, join us for a series of stimulating and thought-provoking conversations on public art and the environment at Dix Park.

Featured Artist: Sam Van Aken

Talk Title: A Tree of 40 Fruits and a Hole in the Sky

Artist Sam Van Aken has spent years blending art, science, and imagination, often in a literal sense. Known for his Tree of 40 Fruit, a single tree that produces dozens of different stone fruits, Van Aken works at the intersection of agriculture and art, using nature as both his canvas and collaborator.

In this talk, Sam will share the stories behind his past and current projects, as well as the ideas that connect them, ranging from climate and cultivation to community and wonder. Inspired by philosopher David Hume’s idea that “a miracle is a transgression of the laws of nature,” his work invites us to look closely at the world around us and see the extraordinary growing quietly in plain sight.

Artist Bio

Sam Van Aken is a contemporary artist who works beyond traditional modes of art making, crossing artistic genres and disciplines to develop new perspectives on such themes as communication, botany, agriculture, climatology, and the ever-increasing impact of technology. Van Aken’s interventions in the natural and public realm are seen as metaphors that serve as the basis of narrative, sites of place-making, and in some cases even become the basis of scientific research.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Sam Van Aken received his undergraduate education in Art and Communication Theory. Immediately following his studies, he lived in Poland and worked with dissident artists under the former communist regime through the auspices of the Andy Warhol Foundation and the United States Information Agency. Van Aken received his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and since this time, his work has been exhibited and placed nationally and internationally.

He has received numerous honors, including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, an Association of International Curators of Art Award, and a Creative Capital Grant. Most recently, his work has been presented as part of the Nature-Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial with the Cube Design Museum, Netherlands. Sam Van Aken lives and works in Syracuse, New York, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Art at Syracuse University.

While free to attend, space is limited. Registration is required.

This program is free to the public thanks to Dix Park Conservancy donors.

Register at the link above.