SAM Talks: Field with Jen Valender and Caroline Esbenshade

In April 2024, SAM Selects artist Jen Valender joined SAM Curator - Community Caroline Esbenshade for a fascinating live conversation exploring the creation of her exhibition Field. Created during Valender’s time on the University of Melbourne’s Dookie Agricultural Campus for her CoVA Art + Ecology residency, the body of moving image works explore the relationship between art and the natural world through a series of video works featuring the wildlife and lush, fluorescent canola fields of Dookie. In this episode, the pair discuss working with animals, performance art, and connecting with farm life.

Field was on display in SAM's Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery from 3 February to 5 May 2024.

About the artist:

Jen Valender is a multidisciplinary artist who creates performative encounters on and with the landscape that raises questions about the relationship between art and the natural world.

Through moving image, she explores the ways in which art may be used as a navigational tool to investigate human and nonhuman connections. Valender has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, and Portugal and holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.

Stay in touch with SAM on socials:
Instagram / www.instagram.com/sam_shepparton
Facebook / www.facebook.com/sheppartonartmuseum

Sign up to our monthly newsletter via Mailchimp

Visit the SAM website to discover our exhibitions and programs: www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

About SAM:

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
As a leading Australian regional art museum, SAM showcases its exhibitions and collections in new and exciting ways to create a welcoming, inclusive, and engaging space for all visitors.

Recognised for its significant Australian ceramics collection and nationally significant collection of Indigenous art, SAM’s programming is designed to be locally relevant and engages with global contemporary ideas. Through its exhibitions, collection, programs and events, SAM creates a place where art helps us to better understand the ancient culture of this country and contemporary multicultural Australia.