ISCP Talk
July 25, 2023, 6–7:30pm

Curators at Work: Yen-Yi Lee with Zhenzhen Qi

For this Curators at Work, ISCP curator-in-residence Yen-Yi Lee will discuss her research with Brooklyn-based artist and researcher Zhenzhen Qi. A Q&A with the audience will follow. 

Lee will reflect on automation, economic structures, and how they impact society and asks “Can art and culture navigate obstacles by glitching the system? When patterns appear without centralized planning, we call it Emergence.” Zhenzhen Qi will be speaking about emergence in physical and virtual worlds, and introducing its connection to Uncomputable and Collective Intelligence. 

Yen-Yi Lee is a curator based in Taipei, Taiwan. Her ongoing curatorial research focuses on failure and risk management. She is the founder of the contemporary art zine, HAGAI HUAKAI and co-founder of SYNERGY festival. With a focus on art and technology, she curated exhibitions at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Taipei Digital Art Festival, Digital Art Center, Taiwan; and Open Space Bae, South Korea, among others. Lee’s residency at ISCP is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.

Zhenzhen Qi is a researcher, artist and technologist from China, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2014, she has taught interactive media, web, and game development courses at Cooper Union, New York University, Columbia University, City University of New York (CUNY), and Guangzhou Academy of Art (GAFA). She has been a member of NEW INC and a resident of Eyebeam and Pioneer Works. Zhenzhen is a candidate for Doctor of Education (EdD) at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, researching software simulation as a mode of collective re-making and un-looping.

This program is supported, in part, by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan; Hartfield Foundation; 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; Sherrill Collection of American Art Foundation; South Arts; James Rosenquist Foundation; Joseph Robert Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation. 

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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
July 18, 2023, 6–7pm

Spindles & Circuits: A Closing Presentation by Vibe Overgaard

Held in conjunction with Vibe Overgaard: Spindle City on view at ISCP through July 21, 2023, Vibe Overgaard will deliver an artist presentation on the circuits of technology, industry, capital, and social relations running through her objects and research. The event will be followed by a short Q&A between the artist and independent curator Laurel Ptak. 

Vibe Overgaard is a Danish visual artist working with installation, sculpture, performance, video, archive material and critical writing. Her research-based practice focuses on economies seen from a historical perspective. Often researching industry and production relations of a specific location, her work links local circumstances to greater global-political questions and critiques. She has exhibited work at Kunsthal NORD, Denmark; Goethe-Institut, Palestine; and Floating Projects, Hong Kong; among others. She was an ISCP artist-in-residence in 2022 and 2023 supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.

Laurel Ptak is a New York-based curator, educator and writer. She has held positions at non-profit art institutions in the United States and internationally including Art in General, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; MoMA PS 1, New York; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, among others. Ptak is a co-founder of Art+Feminism Wikipedia-Edit-A-Thon, a community that confronts gender disparities online and their effects on public forms of knowledge, with events held yearly at the Museum of Modern Art and co-organized by thousands of art institutions, civic institutions, and universities around the world.

This program is supported, in part, by Consulate General of Denmark in New York; Danish Arts 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 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
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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

Participating Residents

Exhibition
June 29–November 17, 2023

Alchemyverse: Messa in Luce

The International Studio & Curatorial Program presents Alchemyverse: Messa in Luce, an installation of work developed in and about Chile’s Atacama Desert by resident collaborative artist duo Alchemyverse, curated by Jess Wilcox. The installation’s centerpiece is a cascade of hanging ceramic tiles produced from wild clay sourced, shaped and pit-fired during a 2022 research trip. 

Alchemyverse probes the region’s reputation as the driest, sunniest place on Earth and host to large-scale scientific and technological infrastructure such as astronomical observatories and solar energy farms. Each ceramic tablet bears the measurement of solar irradiance in kilowatts per square meter on the date of its making and is sonified by conducting transmitters emitting field recordings of the dried river Rio San Pedro and abandoned mine, Mina Victoria. The artists invite exhibition goers to walk onto an elevated floor that vibrates with desert audio and houses artifacts from their field work, which can be viewed from above.  

True to the title’s meaning, Messa in Luce, brings to light what is typically beyond sight. With this immersive scale-shifting installation, Alchemyverse amplifies the universe’s “background noise” to promote an understanding of the Earth as an accumulation of particulate matter in a state of constant flux. 

Alchemyverse was founded in 2020 in New York City by artists Bicheng Liang (b. 1994, China) and Yixuan Shao (b. 1996, China/United States). They combine their respective knowledge bases and skills in print-making and sound studies with intensive field research to form their collaborative practice. Focusing on the intersection of geologic time and contemporary human experience, Alchemyverse uses a tactile, multisensory approach to foster empathy in humans towards mineral systems in the landscape and beyond. Their collaboration began at the MFA Program at Columbia University, where they met. 

Alchemyverse has presented work at museums and galleries across the United States including Asia Art Archive in America, Brooklyn; The Bishop Museum, Honolulu; The Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery and Center, New London; and Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, New York, among others, and the artists’ work has been featured internationally. Residencies include LMCC Governors Island, New York; Desert 23′ S, La Wayaka Current, Chile; AAA-A Zine Residency, New York; International Studio & Curatorial Program Ground Floor Residency, New York; and the Rabbit Island Residency, Lake Superior (Summer 2023).

Jess Wilcox is an independent curator focusing on ecocritical, socially engaged and public art. From 2016 to 2022, she was Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park. There she curated dozens of projects including Helio Oiticica Subterranean Penetrable Projects: PN15, Sink or Swim: Climate Futures, Guadalupe Maravilla: Planeta Abuelx, MONUMENTS NOW, Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again, and the Socrates Annual exhibitions among others.  During her tenure, she organized the first single-artist exhibitions in the Park’s 33-year history and initiated a program of traveling commissioned works to other venues. From 2011 to 2015, she worked at the Brooklyn Museum’s Center for Feminist Art where she co-curated Agitprop!, a 60-artist exhibition of historical and contemporary activist art. She has a BA from Barnard College and Master’s degree from Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies. 

Alchemyverse: Messa in Luce is supported by Alice and Lawrence Weiner; Danna and Ed Ruscha; Hartfield Foundation; Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; 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 the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; James Rosenquist Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation. 

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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.

Open Hours: Monday–Friday, 10:30am–5:30pm
Download Press Release (PDF)

Participating Residents