For this Artists at Work, ISCP artist-in-residence Aryel René Jackson will be joined by artist and educator Zalika Azim. They will speak about Jackson’s recent projects that draw from Black speculative traditions and natural phenomena, such as geological formations, weather patterns, and soil, as frameworks for exploring time, memory, and identity. Together, Jackson and Azim will discuss how both of their practices engage land not only as a geographic space, but as an archive of cultural narrative and belonging.  

Their conversation will reflect on how artistic methodologies, like working with soil, archival research, and non-linear storytelling, can surface relationships between personal memory and broader social histories. A Q&A with the audience will follow. 

Aryel René Jackson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas whose video, installation, and performance work examines entanglements of historical memory, environmental transformation, and personal narrative through speculative frameworks, including Black quantum futurism and alternative histories. Jackson’s recent projects use metaphors of time travel and wormholes to explore the lived experience of chronic phantom pain. Their work has been exhibited at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Contemporary Austin, Texas; and SculptureCenter, New York, among others.

Zalika Azim is an interdisciplinary artist and educator born in Brooklyn, New York, with ancestral roots in Aiken, South Carolina, and Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Azim’s practice explores Black memory, migration, and the poetics of domestic space through photography, installation, and archival intervention. Drawing from familial histories and speculative narratives, her practice interrogates the intersections of personal and collective memory, often employing fragmented imagery and layered compositions to evoke the fluidity of time and identity. Azim’s work has been exhibited at institutions such as Prospect New Orleans, Louisiana and Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York. Currently, she is an artist-in-residence at Pioneer Works, New York.

This program is supported by Vision Fund; Hartfield Foundation; James Rosenquist Foundation; Joe Sultan; Lèna Saltos; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; Dr. Samar Maziad; Sarah Jones; van Beuren Charitable Foundation; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; and Woodman Family Foundation.
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This in-person event will be live streamed through Instagram: @iscp_nyc

Accessibility information: Please note that the entrance to ISCP has seven steps and a ramp, which is ADA compliant. There are seven artist studios and one exhibition space which can be accessed on the first floor of ISCP. There is an accessible bathroom on the first floor at the end of the hallway, up one step, where the artist studios are located. A temporary ramp can be installed to cover the step. To access the second floor, there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 22 steps. The second floor has 22 artist and curator studios, one exhibition space, and a lounge where remarks by our guest speaker will take place. To access the third floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 24 steps. The third floor has five artist and curator studios. ISCP  can access a freight elevator to bring visitors between the first and second floors on request.

ISCP can offer two reserved parking spaces on request for people with disabilities. Please email programs@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.