Talk

Claywoman is a 500 million year old enigma from the Mirillion Galaxy. She travels to Earth (one of her favorite planets) from time to time to check in on us and engage in dialogue. One of her most famous talks was at Hunter College some years ago. This visit to the School of Visual Arts is happening while our species is in a particularly dangerous predicament. This could even be called an emergency visit and certainly has the potential to be as iconic as the Hunter College lecture so many years ago. It’s such an emergency that she is prohibited from traveling to Earth right now and will have to conduct this talk over Zoom. 

Michael Cavadias is an actor/writer and performer. Film and TV credits include Wonder Boys, All We Had, I Remember Nothing, Girls and Difficult People. Theatre credits include Ahohni’s “She Who Saw Beautiful Things” at The Kitchen and “Star Odessey – The Pilot” at MoMA PS1. He originally developed the character, Claywoman, at Blackips Performance Cult in the ’90s and nurtured at Mabou Mines by Ruth Maleczech. More recently, The Mystery of Claywoman (directed by Rob Roth) was presented at The New Museum, The Wild Project, Town Hall, Abrons Art Center and Howl Festival. “Conversations with Claywoman” was featured at The Meltdown Festival in London and continues regularly at Pangea in New York City. 

Claywoman’s makeup is by Ruthie Weems.

About The Art & Politics Lecture Series

Humanity is living through an interlocking series of crises. It is difficult to say strongly enough how urgent the situation is. How do these conditions impact the arts? Does art have resources that might come to our aid in these serious times? What is to be done? In light of all there is to understand and to change, SVA’s Art & Politics Lecture Series, co-hosted by BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the Honors Program, invites activists, scholars, politicians, artists, critics, historians, curators and scientists, to address, discuss and debate politics, art and the delicate filaments that tie them together.