In an unknown apartment in a 10-story apartment building in Harlem, bustling with activity, a pin slowly slips from the plaster ceiling — a pin that has witnessed years of tenants and their histories.

Painter and sculptor Alison Saar finds the idea of an inanimate object bringing such powerful meaning and history to a work exciting and powerful.

“It is the idea that this ceiling pin had witnessed black immigrants coming into the community and these personal experiences this pin had while in that apartment,” she says. “I would rely on these materials to bring power to the art.”

Saar says she believes in the power of materials and feels they are important in telling the stories of past histories. She will discuss her artistic ideas while analyzing slides of her artwork during a lecture in Kocimski Auditorium on Thursday.

Her emphasis on used materials has been an integral part of her artwork. When living in New York City, Saar says, limited funds for supplies led to searching in trash bins for useable items she could incorporate into her artwork.

“The other half of that comes back to the idea of African art and not only using everything that is around, but also that materials experience events and have a history, even though they are inanimate objects,” Saar says. “A stone found in one place has a power or spirit that becomes part of the piece.”

Saar is not only interested in recycled materials and their histories, but also in the issue of identity and how it is formed.

Saar says being born into an artistic, multi-racial home has given her exposure to various art techniques and ideas. Her father is an artist of German and Scottish descent and her mother is one of Native American and black descent.

Saar says her ethnic background is a major contributor to how she constructs her identity.

“Being of mixed race, it became really apparent to me how issues of race still are not resolved,” she says. “The question came up whether being African-American is solely from the color of your skin or if it has to do with your upbringing, the food you eat, how you grow up — I have a curious identity in that,” Saar says.

She says her art reflects these personal concerns at different moments in her life. When she began a family, she says, her art began to reflect new concerns and themes.

“Most of my woman-geared art was around the time my children were young,” Saar says. “I think that was a time when all that really came to the surface for me. Now my work is becoming a little bit more about transition and formulation of identity in youth as my kids reach adolescence.”

Whether Saar is examining her identity as a multi-racial woman or the formulation of identity in her children, she hopes that others look into this issue as well.

“I would like people to look into their own identity and look at who or what is forming that identity — whether it is fashion magazines, or music or whatever,” Saar says.

“It seems to be a real prevalent issue nationally and internationally.”

Who: Alison Saar

What: “Race, Gender and Spirit: Reclaiming Lost Histories through Art”

Where: Kocimski Auditorium, Design College

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Cost: free