Catalogues and Exhibition Texts — click thumbnails to read

Anaïs Duplan, Hope Ginsburg, Melody Jue, Jennifer Lange

Meditation Ocean (gallery guide)

Wexner Center for the Arts, 2023

Sarah Howard

"Sponge Exchange, Hope Ginsburg" (exhibition text)

University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, 2020

Denise Markonish
"Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder" (excerpt from catalog essay)
MASS MoCA, 2016
pp. 50–51

Jennifer Lange
"Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy" (exhibition text)
THE BOX, Wexner Center for the Arts, 2016

Sarah Demeuse
"Weather Permitting" (catalog entry)
9th Mercosul Biennial, 2013
pp. 308–311

Regine Basha
"Hope Ginsburg" (catalog essay)
CUE Art Foundation, 2011
pp. 6–7

Emily Sessions
"Hope Ginsburg" (catalog essay)
CUE Art Foundation, 2011
pp. 21–25

Jennifer Kollar
"Factory Direct: New Haven" (catalog entry)
Artspace, 2005

Helen Molesworth
"Work Ethic" (catalog entry)
Baltimore Museum of Art, 2003
pp. 147–148

Larissa Harris
"Heart of Gold" (excerpt from catalog essay)
PS1, 2002
pp. 3–5

Omer Fast
"Fido Television" (excerpt from catalog essay)
Hunter College Times Square Art Gallery, 2000

Articles and Reviews — click thumbnails to read

Annie Dell'Aria

"Deep Breathing: Annie Dell'Aria on Meditation Ocean"

Artforum, May 2023

Pablo Helguera

"Reading Assignments: Books that artists study, reference, and base works on."

Beautiful Eccentrics

August 18, 2022

Lynn Trimble

"New Generation of Land Artists Embodies a Call for Action"

Hyperallergic

July 14, 2022


Jennifer Lange

Film/Video Studio Journals: Hope Ginsburg

In Practice, Wexner Center for the Arts

Fall 2021

Emma Colón
"5 Artists Bridging Communities Across Difference"
A Blade of Grass Magazine
March 28, 2019

Leila Ugincius
"Optimistic and Tragic: A Glimpse of Coral Restoration"
VCU News
March 26, 2019

Sydney Cologie and Brynne McGregor
"Wex Moments 2018: Film/Video Studio artist Hope Ginsburg" (Q&A)
Wexner Center for the Arts
December 26, 2018

Tim Dodson
"Performative Diving Piece Featured at Festival Honoring the James River"
Richmond Times-Dispatch
June 9, 2018

Karen Newton
"Deep Dive: Artist Hope Ginsburg Becomes One with the Sea"
Style Weekly, June 2018

Jessica Lynne
"From Climate Change to Race Relations, Artists Respond to Richmond, VA" (review)
Hyperallergic, 2015

Lauren O'Neill-Butler
"Hope Ginsburg CUE Art Foundation" (review)
Artforum, Summer 2011

Gary Robertson

"Art Students Find Inspiration in the Lab"

VCU News Center, 2010

T.J. Demos
"Work Ethic" (review)
Artforum, February 2004

Books — click thumbnails to read

Sarah Urist Green

"You Are An Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation"

Penguin Books, 2020

pp. 239–232

Corina L. Apostol and Nato Thompson, Editors

"Making Another World Possible: 10 Creative Time Summits, 10 Global Issues, 100 Art Projects"

Routledge, 2020

pp. 277–278

Akiko Busch

"How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency"

Penguin Books, 2019

pp. 199–200

Educational Materials — click thumbnails to read

Amanda Tobin Ripley and Julia Harth

Winter / Spring 2023 Learning Guide

Wexner Center for the Arts, 2023

Videos — click thumbnails to view

VCUarts Lecture Series: Hope Ginsburg

Institute for Contemporary Art

Richmond, VA 

October 3, 2023

Land Dive Team: Amphibious James

Television Program is a Production of VPM

Producer/Director: Mason Mills

Producer/Field Director: Allison Benedict

September 22, 2019

Conjure a Studio – Hope Ginsburg
The Art Assignment
PBS Digital Studios, 2016

The Art of Pedagogy – Hope Ginsburg

Creative Time Summit

Venice Biennale, 2015

Art and Education in the 21st Century
Panelists: John Brown-Executive Director, Windgate Foundation; Tom Finkelpearl-Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; Hope Ginsburg-Artist and Educator; Moderator: Geoffrey Cowan- President, The Annenberg Foundation Trust
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 2014

Art Students Find Inspiration in the Lab


Dissecting frogs, baking bread with a common microorganism (yeast), using the science of tree rings to artistically illustrate trauma in the lives of loved ones, having your teacher enrolled as a fellow student – for a moment dissolving the hierarchical lines between expert and learners.


Those were some of the ingredients in a novel joint project earlier this year between the Department of Painting and Printmaking in the VCU School of the Arts, and the university’s Department of Biology.


The project, named “Colablabab” in part because of its collaborative aspects, was initiated by Hope Ginsburg, an assistant professor in the Art Foundation and Painting and Printmaking programs, who enrolled in the Biology Concepts course and lab section alongside her students.


Ginsburg is a practicing artist, but one who also comes armed with a master of science in visual studies from MIT, in addition to her undergraduate degree in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.


"It’s a way to teach art students that there’s a whole world of research and study out there to connect with,” Ginsburg said of the interdisciplinary program with the Biology Department.


Hyunji Lee, the lone biology student enrolled in the program, also discovered a way of looking at science through the eyes of an artist.


She combined her knowledge of cellular reproduction to create images depicting dividing chromosomes, which she then transferred to traditional Chinese screens used during family ceremonies to honor ancestors.


“She struggled to figure out what form it would take and had little experience painting and no experience building. But the atmosphere of the class was so collaborative that other students, a sculpture student and a painting student, took their time to teach her how to build the screens and make the paintings,” Ginsburg said.


When the 11 members of Ginsburg’s visual art studio class decided they wanted pizza, they used toppings to depict the parts of a cell then baked their creations in a brick oven that student Kate Connor had built as part of her final project depicting bread loaves as art.


Donald R. Young, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biology, couldn’t have been more pleased with the way things turned out and the learning that occurred.


“This was a chance for students to explore the creative differences between science and art. What they find is that art is often limited by the medium of expression, whereas science is constrained by the scientific method. I hope we can do this course again and make it a regular offering,” Young said.


Ginsburg signed on to take the biology concepts course – she eventually audited it – and a lab that was part of the course so she could participate in homework assignments and study for tests with her art students, to shake up the teacher-student dynamic.


“That kind of leveling of hierarchy was, I think, what was so conducive to a feeling of collaboration in the class,” Ginsburg said.


She added that no one should expect a rush of faculty members to enroll in classes with their students – but she believes it was a worthwhile experiment that had positive results for both collaboration and creativity.


The “Colablabab” project is part of Sponge, an ongoing, participatory artwork that Ginsburg began in 2006, a year before she came to VCU, to generate experimental approaches to learning and teaching. Sponge is now headquartered on the third floor of the VCUarts Anderson Gallery.


An unexpected result of this year’s project was an opportunity for Ginsburg’s students to exhibit their art works in New York at the Long Island City-based Flux Factory for a show called Science Fair,


Science Fair is a cooperative arrangement between Flux Factory and a collective called the Metric System, which encourages cross-disciplinary collaborations between artists, thinkers, scientists and political activists. The show will run on the weekends from June 4-13.


Ginsburg said it’s an event celebrating art and science, and VCU’s willingness to support cross-disciplinary courses such as Colablabab has placed the university’s undergraduate students “in the mix of what’s happening among artist-scientists and scientist-artists.”

Gary Robertson

"Art Students Find Inspiration in the Lab"

VCU News Center, 2010