Long Branch
Exploring Sites in Transition
Meet the Projects' Leaders
Ronit Eisenbach
Ronit Eisenbach is an architect, artist, curator, and educator whose scholarship and multi-disciplinary spatial practice aims to engage others in dialogue about the world we make for ourselves. Combining art, design and architecture, she explores how the perception of subjective, invisible and ephemeral objects affects understanding and experience of place. Eisenbach has exhibited worldwide, collaborating with a diverse collection of artists, architects, designers and choreographers. Her work has been celebrated in a variety of journals and publications including The Washington Post, The Journal of Architectural Education and the Public Art Review. She serves as Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Maryland and curates UMD’s Kibel gallery.
To learn more about Ronit's work visit http://www.roniteisenbach.com/
Sharon Mansur
Sharon Mansur is an experimental contemporary dance artist whose creative investigations integrate improvisational techniques and somatic practices. She engages in site-situated art making that subtly melds the visual and the visceral, as well as shifting awareness of body in relation to landscape. Primary themes include presence, absence, memory, and identity. Filled with “visual surprises and startling images” (The Washington Post), her work has been presented throughout the U.S. and internationally, supported by the Maryland State Arts
Council, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and The Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, among others. Sharon is currently an Associate Professor of Dance in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at UMD.
To learn more about Sharon's work visit http://www.mansurdance.com/
John Ruppert
JOHN RUPPERT received his MFA from the School for American Craftsman, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, in 1977. Ruppert’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums, sculpture parks and galleries both in the United States and abroad. These include Omi International Sculpture Park (NY), Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (NC), Kreeger Museum (DC), Katonah Art Museum (NY), 2010 Miami Sculpture Biennale (FL), National Museum of Contemporary Art (KUMU) in Tallinn, Estonia, Material Terrain, commissioned by Laumeier international Sculpture Park, St Louis (MO), which traveled to eight museums across the country and “Urban Garden” at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston (MA). curated by Nick Capasso of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
His sculptures have been commissioned recently for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai and the 2012 West Lake International Exhibition in Hangzhou, China
Reviews of his work have been published in Art in America, the New Art Examiner, the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and the New York Times with feature articles in Art China and most recently Sculpture magazine.
Ruppert has participated in several artists in residency programs and has received numerous awards including 4 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist grants, the Mary Sawyers Baker Award, which included an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and most recently, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.
John Ruppert, who is a full Professor and served as Chair of the Department of Art, for 13 years at the University of Maryland, College Park, has been on their faculty since 1987.
To learn more about John's work visit http://www.johnruppert.com