Past Residents
Past Resident2012: Canada Council for the Arts
Samina Mansuri
In her recent work, Samina Mansuri uses as a starting point media depictions of war-torn places such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the twin towers or places like New Orleans that have been ravaged by natural disasters. Frequently the architecture of these locations, captured from an aerial view, is reduced to ash or rubble. These views tend to provide a detached sense of actual place. Through a transformed language of aerial cartography Mansuri creates subjective mappings of an ambiguous location of trauma. Through this she aims to bring attention to viewers about mediated representations of misery and its impact on individual and public memory.
Samina Mansuri (born Karachi) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute, New York and MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Mansuri has exhibited her work internationally for over two decades. Recent exhibitions include Qualia or the pulse of Steel, Hamilton, Canada 2012; Out of Rubble, Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, 2011; Leaning Towards Collapse, A Space Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2011; Empire of Dreams Phenomenology of the Built Environment, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada; Double Consciousness, Mattress Factory Museum, USA, 2007 and Post-Object, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Scarborough, Canada, 2007. Her works are represented in public and private collections and have been extensively featured and reviewed in catalogs, books, newspapers and journals.
Samina Mansuri, Ash 9 Tararatiie, 2008, Giclee print, 5213/16 × 44 in. (134.11 × 111.76 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Samina Mansuri, After Images: Cedibidaee Reconstruction Site 9, 2010, Multimedia installation with video projection, 180 × 228 × 24 in. (457.2 × 579.12 × 60.96 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Samina Mansuri, Ash 5 Olaraaee, 2008, Giclee print, 34 × 34 in. (86.36 × 86.36 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Samina Mansuri, Mukiirati, 2008, Giclee print, 34 × 34 in. (86.36 × 86.36 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Samina Mansuri, After Images: Cedibidaee Reconstruction Site 10, 2009 - 2011, Multimedia installation with video projection, 228 × 240 × 24 in. (579.12 × 609.6 × 60.96 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2012: Danish Arts Foundation
Benandsebastian
Artist duo, benandsebastian use the language of architecture to discuss the relationship between a person’s surroundings and the human mind and body. For the artists, architecture not only represents the buildings we inhabit, but also symbolizes a way of thinking that is explored through mythical stories, utopian models, economic systems and power relations. Their work has taken inspiration from such eclectic sources as medieval rituals, romantic ruins, office politics and a Manhattan urban legend. A common thread running through the work is the artist group’s interest in physical and conceptual absences that inspire memory projection, familiarity and longing as ways of filling in the gaps.
Ben Clement (born 1981 in Oxford, United Kingdom) and Sebastian de la Cour (born 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark) work together under the name benandsebastian. They live and work in both Copenhagen and Berlin. Lecturers at the School of Architecture, Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen since 2007 and Guest Professors at the School of Architecture in Aarhus, Denmark since 2011, benandsebastian are graduates of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Phantom Limbs, Trapholt Museum, Kolding, Denmark (2012); Phantom Limbs, Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen (2011); and Unbuilt Extremities, Friedelstrasse 27, Berlin (2011). Group shows include: Treffpunkt:Berlin, Arken, Copenhagen (2012) and Skulptur I Eventyrhaven, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark (2011).
Events & Exhibitions
Brooklyn Commons: Fred Wilson and benandsebastian
September 4, 2012
Benandsebastian, Phantom Limbs, 2011
Benandsebastian, Made in Ruins, 2009-2011, Assorted woods, 80 × 40 × 80 in. (203.2 × 101.6 × 203.2 cm)
Benandsebastian, Mountain of Depression, 2008, Beech plywood, MDF, plastic, steel, rubberized paint, 50 × 30 × 70 in. (127 × 76.2 × 177.8 cm)
Benandsebastian, City of the (Re) Orientated, 2007, Assorted woods, plaster and cardboards, 40 × 30 × 40 in. (101.6 × 76.2 × 101.6 cm)
Benandsebastian, Phantom Limbs, 2011
Residents from Denmark
Past Resident2012: Wallace Arts Trust
Akiko Diegel
Akiko Diegel’s works deal with existence: things that are consumed, worn, worked, worried, carried, things used as comforts and things used as crutches. Diegel’s practice utilizes and examines the act of collecting, recording, constructing and stitching. She works to balance the works between the corporeal and the behavioral sides of being a person. Diegel’s final artworks often relate to the body and human behaviors. Her practice moves fluidly between the seductively kaleidoscopic and the poised, quiet and contained.
Akiko Diegel (born Japan) lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand. She graduated with an MFA in 2008 from the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. In 2011, Akiko Diegel was awarded the Paramount Award for her work, Cure, at the 20th Annual Wallace Art Awards. Her work has been included in the Wallace Art Award finalist exhibition every year between 2006 and 2010. Diegel was a finalist in the Waiheke Art Awards (2011), the Waikato Museum National Contemporary Art Award (2007-2010) and the Norsewear Art Award (2007).
Akiko Diegel, Untitled, 2009, Wool blanket
Akiko Diegel, Up Where We Belong, 2008, C-type print, 151/2 × 151/2 in. (39.37 × 39.37 cm)
Akiko Diegel, Untitled, 2008, Wool blanket, 10 × 7 in. (25.4 × 17.78 cm)
