----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
So, week 2 brings the hectic times of exhibition installation. The
artistic fragments of "This Mess We're In" are gathering together in the
gallery and the breathlessness of anticipation is enervating. Check out
my instagram @tarshbates or This Mess We're In on facebook for updates.
While I am off preparing the ground for its emergence, I am very proud
to introduce the three guests on -empyre- this week: Alize Zorlutuna,
Rachel Mayeri and Špela Petrič, who are also artists in the exhibition.
*Alize *is an artist, poet, experimental cook, curator, intersectional
feminist, committed pedagogue, and life-long learner. Working across
disciplines, she investigates issues concerning identity and power,
settler-colonial relationships to land, culture and colonial violence,
as well as intimacy with the non-human, and technology. Her practice is
informed by a critical engagement with historical narratives and their
present-day impacts. Drawing on archival, as well as practice-based
research, the body and its sensorial capacities are central to her
approach. She has presented her work in galleries and artist-run centres
across Turtle Island, including: Plug In ICA, Doris McCarthy Gallery,
InterAccess, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Satellite Gallery, Audain Art
Museum, Access Gallery, and Toronto Free Gallery, as well as
internationally at The New School: Parsons (NY), Mind Art core (Chicago)
and Club Cultural Matienzo (Argentina). She received her MFA from Simon
Fraser University and her BFA from OCAD University. Alize has curated a
number of exhibitions, most notably Restless Precinct (2014), a
site-specific exhibition at Guildwood Park in Scarborough ON, in
collaboration with Radiodress. Her curatorial approach seeks to
highlight voices and perspectives that storytell edges, in-betweens, and
possible futures. She has been a sessional instructor at OCAD University
since 2015, where she teaches a variety of courses in both the
Sculpture/Installation and Integrated Media departments. She is
currently the Curator in Residence at Humber Galleries.
*Rachel *is an LA-based artist working at the intersection of art and
science. Her videos, installations, and writing projects explore topics
ranging from the history of special effects to the human animal. The
multi-year project “Primate Cinema” investigates the boundary between
human and non-human primates in a series of video experiments. This work
has shown at Sundance, Berlinale, Ars Electronica, and dOCUMENTA (13).
Recent commissions include the environmental art project “Critters
Speak” about the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem seven years after Deepwater
Horizon, with Brandon Ballengée, funded by National Academy of Sciences
Keck Futures Institute; the animated opera “Ofeo Nel Canale Alimentare”
about the digestive tract, supported by Imagine Science Films, and “The
Jollies” an animated documentary about the primatologist Alison Jolly.
As professor of media studies at Harvey Mudd College, she teaches
courses such as Animal Media Studies, Art & Science, and Stories from
the Anthropocene.
*Špela *is a Slovenian new media artist and former scientific researcher
currently based between Ljubljana, SI and Amsterdam, NL. Her practice is
a multi-species endeavour, a composite of natural sciences, wet media
and performance. She envisions artistic experiments that enact strange
relationalities to reveal the ontological and epistemological
underpinnings of our technological societies and challenge the scope of
the adjacent possible. Much of her recent work has focused on plant
life. Her work has been shown at many festivals, exhibitions and
educational events (Transmediale (DE), Abandon Normal Devices (UK),
Venice Biennial of Architecture (IT), Touch Me Festival (CRO),
Pixxelpoint (IT), Playaround (TW), Harvard (ZDA), Ars Electronica (AT),
Cite des Arts (FR)...). She also received several awards including the
White Aphroid for outstanding artistic achievement, the Bioart and
Design Award and an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica.
--
Co-Convenor Quite Frankly: Its a Monster Conference 18-19 October 2018
Curator This Mess We're In 13 October - 2 November 2018 Unhallowed Arts
Festival 2018
Postdoctoral Research Associate • SymbioticA • School of Human Sciences
• The University of Western Australia • M309, 35 Stirling Hwy Crawley WA
6009 Australia • T +61 8 6488 5583 • M +61 (0) 432 324 708 • E
natarsha.ba...@research.uwa.edu.au
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which I live: The
Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. I acknowledge their ancestors and
pay my respects to their elders; past, present and future.
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
