Gale Memorial Lecture Series

The Gale Memorial Lecture Series was established in memory of Dr. David Gale and his wife Sylvia whose generosity made the series possible.

Since the establishment of the David and Sylvia Gale Endowment in 1993, the Visiting Artist Lecture Series has thrived, and many students have benefitted from the scholarship. Lectures are free and open to the public.

Full Lectures on Youtube

Gale Memorial Lecture Series Fall 2025

Image of Sheri Crider presentation announcement

Sheri Crider

Mobile Abolition Library, November 5, 2025, 4:30 pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 5:30 pm
ARTSLab, 131 Pine St. NE

Gizmo Building Tour: Thursday, November 6, 2025, 5:00 pm
410 Central Ave. SW

sheri crider is a social practice artist with a robust visual arts practice centered on solace, respite, magic, and belonging. crider’s journey as an artist has been deeply informed by her personal experiences, which include over a decade of homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. These experiences have shaped her artistic practice and mission. As a multidisciplinary artist, sheri creates spaces that reimagine the best and worst of ourselves. Their work includes interactive sculpture, VR environments, painting and collaborative works that engage wide, nontraditional audiences. sheri received an academic tuition waiver and a fine arts scholarship at the University of Arizona where they received a BFA in Ceramics and Queer Theory. sheri went on to earn a MFA in Sculpture from the University of New Mexico. sheri is the founder/director of Sanitary Tortilla Factory, and Gizmo Arts community art spaces in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more than ten years, sheri’s spaces have supported emerging queer and POC artists in a comprehensive way.

sheri’s work has been exhibited nationally with solo and group exhibitions at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, University of Arizona Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. crider has been the recipient of multiple grants and fellowships including the inaugural cohort of Open Philanthropy’s Right of Return Fellowship, supporting original artworks to further criminal justice reform, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Youth Civic Infrastructure, and Art For Justice. Her work has been reviewed in critically acclaimed periodicals including PBS Newshour, Hyperallergic and other notable periodicals.

Event Presented by:

  • UNM Department of Art
  • ARTSLab 20th Anniversary
  • UNM Women’s Resource Center
Photo announcement of Sheida Soleimani Lecture

Sheida Soleimani

https://edelassanti.com/artists/67-sheida-soleimani/
Artist Talk: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 5:30 pm
ARTSLab, 131 Pine St. NE

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015. Sheida’s work explores intersections of art and activism, melding sculpture, performance, film and photography to highlight critical perspectives on events across the Middle East, unpicking the complex power dynamics between the region and western nations. Soleimani’s work interrogates the dissemination of information in digital contexts, adapting found images from press and social media leaks to exist within alternative scenarios. Her photographs document constructed sets within her studio, in which repeating images carve out trompe l’oeil perspectives in a visual metaphor for the competing political narratives relayed by her source materials.

Recent solo exhibitions include Panjereh, International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, New York, USA (2025); no breath, no breeze, ICA Maine, Portland, Maine, USA (2024); The Banner Project: Ghostwriter, MFA Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2023); Ghostwriter, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2023); Negotiators, Kunsthaus Photoforum Pasquart, Biel, CH (2022); Ghostwriter, Providence College Galleries, Providence, USA (2022); ILVA, Castello San Basilio, Basilicata, Italy (2022); Levers of Power, Silver Eye Centre for Photography, Pittsburgh, USA (2021); Hotbed, Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, USA (2020); Medium of Exchange, Southern Utah Museum of Art, Utah; CUE Art Foundation, New York; Cincinnati Contemporary Art, Cincinnati and Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, all USA (2018-2019). Selected group exhibitions include Uncanny, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., US (2025); Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest, South London Gallery, London, UK (2024); Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America, PAFA, Philadelphia, USA (2023); A Trillion Sunsets, ICP, New York, USA (2022); Immune Project, Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland (2022); Denunciation!, ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany (2021); deCordova Biennial, deCordova Museum of Art, Lincoln, USA (2019); Ecologies of Darkness, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (2019). Soleimani lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

Event Presented by:

  • UNM Department of Art
  • ARTSLab 20th Anniversary
  • UNM Women’s Resource Center