ISCP Talk
July 8, 2014
Salon: Michelle-Marie Letelier and Akansha Rastogi
Michelle-Marie Letelier will focus on her previous and current process for the project The Last Journey of Peking, which she has been developing during her residency at ISCP as part of the South Street Seaport Museum in lower Manhattan. PEKING is a large bark that belonged to the last chapter of the commercial sailing trade, transporting Chile Saltpeter—or Sodium Nitrate—from Chile to Germany. Formerly used as a fertilizer and gunpowder, saltpeter is a symbol of a profitable industry that was once the main income of Chile, extracted from the Atacama Desert. Taken into consideration the fact that PEKING will not longer be part of the South Street Seaport Museum and the uncertainty that this situation brings, alongside the current conditions of the Museum, this project aims to pay tribute to an historical fact, by adding new elements that will enrich the relationship between two natural resources: wind and sodium nitrate.
Akansha Rastogi will elaborate on her curatorial practice, giving examples from her previous exhibitions and focusing in particular on the ongoing project Grazing. Moving back and forth between old projects and new conceptual frameworks that she has been developing during the residency, she will also read briefly from her recent writings on The Passer-by.
Participating Residents
Michelle-Marie Letelier, Irving Johnson The Peking Battles Cape Horn, 1995, Based on the original book 'Round the Horn in a Square-rigger'.
Akansha Rastogi.
