Jigsaw Puzzle: All Utopias Fell by Michael Oatman

Artist Michael Oatman was born in Burlington, Vermont, and his undergraduate degree is from the Rhode Island School of Design. He teaches in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY where he has lived and worked since 1989. Oatman makes collages, videos and installations comprised of individual and institutional archives. Using a process of critical nostalgia, he addresses collecting, paradigm shifts in the sciences/humanities, and his many themes include eugenics, space exploration and the myth of utopia. 

Oatman is the 2005 recipient of the Nancy Graves Foundation Award and is the first artist invited to interpret the personal archives of Astronaut Neil Armstrong, housed at Purdue University. His long-term installation "All Utopias Fell" features a stained-glass window by artist Debora Coombs and has been on view at MASS MoCA since 2010.