ISCP Talk
September 12, 2017, 6:30–8:30pm

A special ISCP evening of book launches and performance

Book launches: The Characters by Tonje Bøe Birkeland and Staging, edited by Rosario Güiraldes, co-published by Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and International Studio & Curatorial Program

Performance: The Witching Hour: A Concert by Zorka Wollny and Ami Yamasaki

The book The Characters # I-IV is a retrospective book by ISCP alumna Tonje Bøe Birkeland, that holds together her projects from the past eight years. Birkeland’s work explores the authenticity of history through self-portraits that recreate expeditions of female explorers and heroines from the past. Each of The Characters makes its own meta-journey: through Greenland, Mongolia, the mountains of Norway and Switzerland, and to Bhutan. These photographs expound time and place, while investigating personality and physical limits. Birkeland demonstrates that fantasy and photography can fill a void in history, while revealing some of contemporary society’s challenges: globalized colonization on the one hand and the loss of the great adventure on the other. The book is printed in 300 copies, each numbered by hand.

The book launch will also include the publication Staging, edited by Rosario Güiraldes. Co-published by Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and ISCP, 2017, the book includes work by eight artists and seven curators. Staging documents and expands upon the first of ISCP and CCS Bard’s collaborations begun in Fall 2015.

The evening will end with The Witching Hour, a short music event by current ISCP resident Zorka Wollny who has invited vocalist and media artist Ami Yamasaki to collaborate on a two-part concert. Purely vocal composition, the poetic performance of Yamasaki will define the beginning and the end of the mysterious moment known as the witching hour. She will create the framework for Wollny’s concert, who together with a small group of performers, will present a world of alienated noises, cracks, hums and whispers.

This program is supported, in part, by The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Director’s Circle, New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

6:30–8:30pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
August 29, 2017, 6:30–8pm

Kiluanji Kia Henda and Dariel Cobb discuss A City Called Mirage

Kiluanji Kia Henda will be in conversation with Dariel Cobb on the occasion of the exhibition A City Called Mirage.

Kiluanji Kia Henda (born 1979, Luanda, Angola) is a Luanda-based artist, working with photography, video and performance. His work has been exhibited at institutions including Tate Liverpool, 2017; SCAD Museum, Savannah, 2016; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2016; National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2015; Tamayo Museum, Mexico, 2012; and Arnolfini, Bristol, 2012. He has participated in the 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, New Museum, New York; Dakar Biennale, 2014; Bienal de São Paulo, 2007; Venice Biennale, 2007, and the Luanda Triennale, 2007. He is the winner of 2017 Frieze Artist Award and the 2012 National Prize of Art and Culture, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Luanda.

Dariel Cobb is a PhD candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture at MIT. Her work examines modern art and architecture across the Black Atlantic, with a particular focus on plastic synthesis between art and architecture, the influence of Négritude on expressions of nationalism, and the entanglement of modern architecture and “tropicality” in the postcolony. Her dissertation explores post-colonial expressions of national identity in Francophone West Africa, and the discursive milieu which influenced creative exploration at mid-century, including the work of ethnographers, writers, and artists alongside architects. Dariel has written about Afrofuturism and the technological body in Africa; the climate discourse in modern architecture; juridical definitions of space; the relationship of nomadic peoples to built space, and the various ways “built” is defined. Her recent publications range from the work of Angolan photographers and the design of urban Luanda, to the discipline of creative labor and the economics of architecture as work.

This program is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Dennis Elliott Founder’s Fund, Greenwich Collection Ltd., New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy.

6:30–8pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
August 15, 2017, 6:30–8pm

Salon: Ling-lin Ku and Maria Zervos

Ling-lin Ku’s recent sculptures call on commercial window displays and retail shelf architecture as spaces for self-projection, desire, collage and humor. Finding inspiration in food, language puns, free association, day dreaming, and material alchemy, Ku will discuss how these influences hybridize in her object making.

Maria Zervos will speak about her interests in peripatetics, home and exile, topos and utopia. She will present her recent project entitled Peripatetics (Athens) together with a book that includes poems and texts by the artist and others, which explore the current state of migration in relation to politics.

This program is supported, in part, by Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and Wolf Inc.

6:30–8pm

Participating Residents