Echo Scholarship Auction – Aay Preston-Myint
AAY PRESTON-MYINT
– Echo Scholarship Auction –
Untitled (Apparatus), 2010
screenprint on paper
15″ x 22″
Estimated Value: $350
Aay’s Echo Scholarship is intended to support an artist whose work actively engages queer theory, feminism, or gender-nonconformity.
“Art as a Platform”
Art has been a fixture in Aay Preston-Myint’s life since he was a child. Born to two artistic parents, Aay grew up in the vibrant city of New York. As a child he remembers walking through the dramatic Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and being struck by the beautiful decorations covering the mummies. Art creation has been a constant in his life since an early age; he always knew that he would be making art in some capacity. While attending liberal arts school, his commitment to art rose to a new level and he decided to dedicate his life to that passion. “I just want to do this one thing and it’s the thing I want to do and I don’t want to do that here.” With this realization Aay moved to Chicago and began school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
For Aay art should be appreciated for the labor it demands as well as the messages it transmits. “I think in a heady sense…whatever you make should have meaning and conviction…it should be trying to say something.” A seminal point in Aay’s career was his experience with The Texas Ballroom, a collectively run art space for exhibits and shows, which offered him the opportunity for immersion in an impassioned artistic community. During his time at The Texas Ballroom he worked on Pilot TV, a Transfeminist media conference. This conference resonated with him; not only was it important politically for the queer and art communities, but also because it changed how he thought about his practice. Through this conference he came to think of art as “creating and fostering experiences;” it gave him a new perspective on how art can provide platforms for discussion and change.
During his time at ACRE, Aay helped run the screen printing lab. ACRE allowed him the opportunity to interact with visiting artists, discuss his practice with other residents as well as research and reflect on his own work. Having found ACRE shortly after leaving graduate school, Aay speaks to its value as a community and launch point for his ideas and career. Upon leaving school Aay remembers feeling unmoored. ACRE, he says, offers a built-in community that doesn’t expire like the school community that disperses with graduation. The community at ACRE is enduring; he advises future ACRE residents to not work too hard but rather appreciate the time ACRE gives you.
Ashlan Falletta-Cowden