Shana Moulton, Visiting Artist Lecture 2026

Shauna Moulton gives a lecture talking about her performance, film, sculpture, photography, video, and installation practice. Moulton begins her lecture by talking about her experience as a 2004 Skowhegan participant and the lifelong friendships she made that summer. Moulton then goes into great detail discussing Cynthia, a character she created, which has become her performance alter-ego. Moulton explains how Cynthia was first developed during graduate school from a series of dresses embedded with medical devices. At first they were meant to be sculptures and photographs, and eventually turned into performances and films. Moulton discusses various cultural influences and genres that impact her performance-based work, such as soap operas, experimental film, internet culture, children’s television and film, and set design; all of which function as material for her performances. Moulton mentions the freedom she finds in the limitation of working with one alter ego. This limitation allowed her to work with humor. It gives Moulton parameters which enable her to tackle new scenarios she is interested in depicting. For example, Cynthia is the version of Moulton that looks into a bathroom mirror and worries about aging, or Cynthia is a version of Moulton that stares at a wall and wants to go into a portal that will lead to a better world. Ultimately for Moulton, Cynthia has become a springboard to deal with all kinds of emotions the artist has grappled with over the decades.