Talk/Lecture | Art

Kelly Akashi

Join visual artist Kelly Akashi for a discussion about her practice in glass, bronze, crystal, stone, and ash.

Free for all audiences with ticket

Collage image of a portrait of Kelly Akashi and an installation view of large-scale steel replicas of lace patterns and a sculpture of an upside-down plant with roots.
Date
Sep 8, 2026
Cost
Free
Time
4 p.m. - 5 p.m. ET
Location
Wexner Center for the Arts

Film/Video Theater

Kelly Akashi uses material transformation to give physical form to memory, inheritance, and loss, translating intimate objects into multimedia sculptures that register time and change. She renders things that are fragile or impermanent into enduring forms—hands that suggest aging and growth, weeds made monumental, extinct shells enlarged beyond nature, and inherited lace recast in weathering steel. These works hold traces of touch and labor. 
 
Akashi’s practice is grounded in deep material engagement, where learning processes such as glassblowing, stone carving, mold making and casting, and candle making becomes integral to her conceptual approach. Skill is not separate from meaning but a way of yielding to time, discipline, and transformation. Through this, she reflects on mortality and the quiet dignity of transience.
 
A Q&A follows the talk.