ISCP Talk
June 27, 2023, 6–7:30pm

Artists at Work: Akshay Sethi with William Chan

For this Artists at Work, ISCP artist-in-residence Akshay Sethi will speak about his practice and be interviewed by NYC-based artist and activist William Chan. A Q&A with the audience will follow. 

Sethi will begin the program with an overview of his recent book projects, leading into a closer examination of his work Situational Irony of a Stick. He and Chan will then discuss perspectives on rising political extremism in India and the United States, and the roles that artists, cultural organizers, and activists can play in advocating for social change.

Akshay Sethi is a Delhi-based artist whose practice explores the complex relationship between the personal and political. He contemplates the ordinary and delves into the vast reservoir of normally unnoticed, trivial, repetitive actions and the uneventful in everyday life, through his drawings, zines, graphic narratives and installations. 

William Chan is a mutual aid organizer, activist, and artist. His works on Iraq are held at public libraries such as the Tim Hetherington Library at the Bronx Documentary Center, New York; Tate Modern, London; Yale University, Connecticut; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Harvard University, Massachusetts, among others. He is the founder of Home Gallery, a window gallery in Lower Manhattan and the co-director of Transmitter Gallery in Brooklyn.

This program is supported, in part, by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 33; 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; James Rosenquist Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
___________

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. To access the second floor there is a

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 akuo@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

6–7:30pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
June 20, 2023, 6–7:30pm

Artists at Work: Ruth Owens and Sukaina Kubba

For this Artists at Work, ISCP artists-in-residence Ruth Owens and Sukaina Kubba will give presentations on their respective artistic practices and engage each other and the audience in conversation. They will be joined by Director of Programs Alison Kuo. 

Among the points of commonality between them, both Owens and Kubba left careers as highly respected professionals, Owens as a medical doctor and Kubba as an architect, to fully commit to their artistic practices. They share a passion for telling diasporic narratives with unexpected twists, and they recognize the power of craft, design, and specifically the use of pattern, as tools for better understanding cross-cultural histories.

Ruth Owens graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and belongs to the artist collective The Front, both in New Orleans. Owens’ work is concerned with contributing to and preserving Black archives, and uses personal Super 8 film references in her painting and video art. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina; Addison Gallery of American Art, Massachusetts; and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, among others. Artist residencies include Joan Mitchell Center, New York; Vermont Studio Center, Vermont; and Studios at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, among others. Her videos have been featured in the New Orleans Film Festival and the Patois Film Festival in New Orleans.

Sukaina Kubba is an Iraqi Canadian artist living in Toronto. She has exhibited work at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; and Hilary Crisp, London, among others. Upcoming exhibitions include ​​Mercer Union’s SPACE billboard commission for 2023/2024 and a solo exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland in 2024. Kubba is also a sessional lecturer in Visual Studies at Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto and served as lecturer and curator at the Glasgow School of Art from 2013 to 2018. 

This program is supported, in part, by Canada Council for the Arts; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 33; 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; Sherrill Collection of American Art Foundation; South Arts; James Rosenquist Foundation; Joseph Robert Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation. 

________

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. To access the second floor there is a

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 akuo@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

6–7:30pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
May 23, 2023, 6–7pm

Artists at Work: Dana Robinson, Nathaniel Donnett and Shanekia McIntosh with Allison Glenn

For this Artists at Work, ISCP residents Dana Robinson, Nathaniel Donnett and Shanekia McIntosh will give presentations about their recent work and engage each other in a conversation moderated by independent curator Allison Glenn. 

A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Dana Robinson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn who combines vintage materials, found objects, and paint to explore themes of Blackness, womanhood, and ownership. She has exhibited work at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City; Texas State University, San Marcos; and 92nd Street YMCA and Selena’s Mountain, New York, among others.

Nathaniel Donnett’s interdisciplinary practice explores imagination, notions of being, the in/exterior, and race through metaphysical and phenomenological spaces. His work challenges tradition using abstraction and vernacular forms. Donnett recontextualizes materials and meaning by delving into subjects rooted in sociopolitical-cultural concerns and liminal spaces. He has exhibited work at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Project Row Houses, Houston; and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, among others.

Shanekia McIntosh is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on poetry. Her work explores the intersection of passivity and action, apathy and empathy, as well as capitalism’s dehumanizing capacities, with the goal of cultivating space for afro-futurism, empathetic political actions, and accessibility. She has exhibited work at the New Museum, New York; Collar Works, New York; and Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, among others.

Allison Glenn is a curator and writer focusing on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. She is one of the curators for the Counterpublic 2023 triennial in St. Louis, presenting the work of Sir David Adjaye OM OBE, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Maya Stovall, in collaboration with The Griot Museum of Black History and the George B. Vashon Museum. In 2021, Glenn also curated Promise, Witness, Remembrance at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor and centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. 

This program is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; Hartfield Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; James Rosenquist Foundation; Wilhelm Family Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

_________________

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. To access the second floor there is a

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 akuo@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

6–7pm