Mack McFarland is a cultural producer, educator, and Executive Director for Converge 45. In May 2020 he co-founded Congress Yard Projects with Ariana Jacob, an outdoor exhibition space begun in the time of physical distancing. For 14 years, McFarland served as curator for Pacific Northwest College of Art, curating or organizing over 200 exhibitions, lectures, and events. His exhibitions at PNCA included commissioned projects of new works from tactical media practitioners Critical Art Ensemble, Eva and Franco Mattes, and Disorientalism; as well as solo exhibitions from Joe Feddersen, Cauleen Smith, David Horvitz, and Joe Sacco.
For the last several years, McFarland cultural production has been focused on researching and highlighting the lack of equitable representation within our public spaces and institutions. In 2018, he partnered with Portland artist Sara Siestreem (Hanis-Coos)to contend with the racist legacies found in an art school’s architectural details; commissioning eight Indigenous artists to create installations of physical and psychic markers to the region’s Indigenous presence and the many peoples that lived on the land before the process of settler colonialism. Issues of class and representation, information environments, and phenomenological perception are concepts manifested in his exhibitions, postcards, performances, and videos. If you send him something in the mail, you will get something in return.
Teaching
Art 311-Studio Seminar on Contemporary Art Theory and Practice