Shannon Bewley

Shannon Bewley is PhD Candidate in the History of Art & Architecture at Boston University. Her research focuses on sculpture, exhibition spaces, and public art in the twentieth century. She draws on newspaper reports, community and interviews, and institutional archives to discuss controversial commissions within the professionalization of museum practice and public funding for the arts. Her dissertation project discusses land reclamation sculpture, or earthen sculptures commissioned in the 1970s and 1980s by local governments to rehabilitate industrial wasteland into accessible parks. She teaches courses at several universities in the Boston area, including Simmons University, Suffolk University, and Boston University. Hailing from the Deep South, Bewley has worked as an art installer and photographer at Biggin Gallery, and archivist and provenance researcher at the Birmingham Museum of art, both in Alabama.