States / In / States
15 - 19 JANUARY 2022
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
ADVISING ARTISTS
Richard Bell lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. He works across a variety of media including painting, installation, performance and video. One of Australia’s most significant artists, Bell’s work explores the complex artistic and political problems of Western, colonial and Indigenous art production. Richard grew out of a generation of Aboriginal activists and has remained committed to the politics of Aboriginal emancipation and self-determination.
An installation and performance artist, Tania Bruguera focuses on the ways in which art can be applied to everyday political life. Focusing on the transformation of affect into political effectiveness, Bruguera’s long-term projects have involved profound interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education, and politics. As a result of her artistic actions and activism, Bruguera has been arrested and jailed several times.
Artist and filmmaker Pınar Öğrenci (1973, Van, Turkey) lives in Berlin. Öğrenci’s works are decolonial and feminist readings situated at the intersection of social, political, and anthropological research and everyday human stories that follow agents of migration such as war, state violence, collective movements, as well as industrial and urban development projects. While transforming the visual and audio documents she archives by detaching them from their contexts, Öğrenci makes relational connections between different cultures, spaces, and time periods as well as architecture, literature, and history.
LANGUAGE IS NEVER ON THE GROUND
10 - 14 FEBRUARY 2022
Entitled Language Is Never On The Ground, the 4th AfA edition focuses on the notion of displacement. It engages artistic practices that examine themes including language as an impediment, sound as a measure of displacement, voice as survival, and acoustics as somatic memory.
Language is Never on the Ground includes online workshops led by Advising Artists Radio Alhara, Lydia Ourahmane, and Katarina Zdjelar and guest lectures by a suite of international artists including Hiwa K.
After an overwhelming response to our open call, AfA is proud to announce the 10 international artists who will take part in our upcoming edition Language is Never on the Ground. The final group consists of artists working across a broad range of practices, diverse backgrounds, and geographies, from Taipai, Berlin, and Budapest, to Melbourne, Boston, and Zhuhai:
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
ADVISING ARTISTS
Radio Alhara will lead a lecture and workshop entitled Practicing Common Spaces. They will explore collective listening at the time of hyper individuality, and how communities create solidarities at times of crises.
Launched from Palestine at the beginning of the global lockdown in 2020, Radio Alhara, a communal media platform, encompasses the idea of a public space and aims to blend the limits between producers and listeners.
For the AfA edition, Lydia will lead a workshop entitled Crush Theory and will present a lecture with Myriam Ben Salah, the Director and Chief Curator of the Renaissance Society in Chicago.
Based between Algiers and Barcelona Lydia Ourahmane’s work comprises installation, sculpture and sound. Engaging with the emotional, psychological and political charge of material and place, Ourahmane’s practice raises complex questions concerning the effects of geographic borders on bodies and how systems of governance influence everyday experience. Ourahman’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues Kunsthalle Basel, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco; BCa’Pesaro Museum of Contemporary Art, Venice; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Jameel Art Center, Dubai; Manifesta 12, Palermo; Kunstverein München, Munich; and the New Museum, New York;
For the edition, Katarina will present a lecture and lead a workshop entitled ‘Entangled Voices. Proximities, a rehearsal, an archive’.
Katarina Zdjelar grew up in Belgrade and is currently based in Rotterdam. Working mainly in the medium of video, her work explores the way one body encounters another as a site of resistance and possibility, pointing to the fragile agency of collective action in the present. Voice, music, sound and language have been the core interests throughout her practice. Her most recent works look at potentials and legacies of pacifist (proto) feminist practices, including that of Käthe Kollwitz and Dore Hoyer.
Zdjelar represented Serbia at the 53rd Venice Biennale and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally at such venues as 11th Berlin Biennale, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; Frieze Foundation, London; Casino Luxembourg; De Appel, Amsterdam, MACBA Barcelona. Zdjelar is also an educator in her post as a core tutor at Piet Zwart Institute (MA Fine Art), WdKA Rotterdam and at Nederlandse Film Academy, Master Artistic Research in Amsterdam.
Guest Lecturer
Hiwa K’s works, escape normative aesthetics but give a possibility of another vibration to vernacular forms, oral histories (Chicago boys, 2011), modes of encounter (Cooking with Mama, 2006) and political situations (This lemon tastes of apple, 2011). The repository of his references consists of stories told by family members and friends, found situations as well as everyday forms that are the products of pragmatics and necessity.
Hiwa K was involved in various collective exhibitions such as La Triennale in Paris and the “Edgware Road Project” at the Serpentine Gallery in London. His Chicago Boys While We Were Singing They Were Dreaming project is continuously hosted by important international institutions, such as Alternativa Festival in Gdansk,the CASCO in Utrecht, the Serpentine Gallery in London, New Museum/ NYC, MACRO/Rome, MuHKA and MUSAC in León. , he participated in the VII edition of Manifesta curated by Raqs Media Collective, New Museum in NY and Venice Biennale 2015.
POLITICS OF SHARING
MARCH 2021
The third AfA Masterclass edition addresses the nexus between art practice and the politics of sharing. Internationally renowned artists Megan Cope, Maria Papadimitriou, Gregory Sholette, and Dmitry Vilensky / Chto Delat? will be leading workshops, and lectures, working closely with a group of 12 early-career artists, collectives, activists, and organizations, from New Delhi, Manila, and Esfahan to Tunis, Mexico City, and Brooklyn.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Iñigo Malvido Escobedo & Paola Jalili / Mexico City and Helsinki
Hermano Luz Rodrigues & Stephanie Lee Yeung / Rotterdam and Brooklyn
Pararailing (Sixing Xu, Snow Xuecan Ye, Jie Shao) / Shanghai
Anthony Terzino / Cambridge MA
ADVISING ARTISTS
MEGAN COPE
Megan Cope is a Quandamooka artist. Her site-specific sculptural installations, video work, paintings and public art investigate issues relating to identity, the environment and mapping practices. She has featured in the NGV Triennial 2020, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2020), The National (2017), and Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial (2017) and many more. In 2017-19 Cope was the Official Australian War Artist. Her work is held in Australian and international collections. She is a member of Aboriginal art collective proppaNOW, and is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
MARIA PAPADIMITRIOU
Maria Papadimitriou is a Greek contemporary visual artist known for her ability to investigate collaborative projects and collective activities that highlight the interconnection between art and social reality. She is professor at the Dept. of Architecture, University of Thessaly, she is the founder ofT.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All) 1998, SOUZY TROS Art Canteen 2012 and in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic she created the Institute of PostEpicureanGarden (iPeg) a Temporary Gathering of Awkward Gardeners (TEGAG) Since 2017 with the American artist Rick Lowe runs the Victoria Square Projects. In 2003 she won the DESTE prize for contemporary Greek art and ιn 2016 she was awarded with the rank of “Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques” by the French government.
GREG SHOLETTE
Dr. Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, activist who, along with Professor Chloë Bass, co-directs Social Practice CUNY (SPCUNY): a new, Mellon-funded art and social justice initiative. His art and research seek to theorize and document issues of cultural labor, collectivism, decolonial historical representation and several decades of activist art. A graduate of the Whitney Program, The Cooper Union, UC San Diego, and the University of Amsterdam, Sholette is a co-founder of the collectives Political Art Documentation/ Distribution (1980-1988); REPOhistory (1989-2000); and Gulf Labor Coalition (2010 ongoing), as well as the author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism (2017); Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (2011); Art As Social Action (with Bass: 2018), and forthcoming, The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art from Lund Humphries (2021).
DMITRY VILENSKY
Dmitry Vilensky (born in Leningrad in 1964) is an artist, educator and cultural environmentalist with no art degrees. He elicits situations and relationships. No one knows what he is up to right now: perhaps he is editing a new issue of Chto Delat’s newspaper, or maybe administering the Chto Delat Mutual Aid Fund, or editing a film, or talking with the participants of the School of Engaged Art, or making a set for a new play, or sitting in the assembly at Rosa’s House of Culture editing presentation for another conference. Most likely, he is doing all this and dozens of other activities at the same time, surrounded by various comradely compositions of bodies and minds in his hometown of Saint Petersburg, at Zoom and in many other places around the world.
THE INSTITUTIONAL COLLAPSE
NOVEMBER 2020
The second edition of the AfA Masterclass Series: The Institutional Collapse consists of a suite of lectures from Advising Artists Noah Fischer, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon (MTL Collective), Vivien Sansour four workshops beamed across 18 cities including Amsterdam, Athens, Bangkok, Cairo, Chicago, Kolkata, New York and Sydney. Each Advising Artist will present a lecture and a workshop engaging the theme of The Institutional Collapse as it relates to experimental interdisciplinary artistic practices.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
ADVISING ARTISTS
DECOLONIZE THIS PLACE
Nitasha Dhillon has a B.A. in Mathematics from St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Media Study - University of Buffalo. Nitasha also attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York and School of International Center of Photography. Amin Husain has a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science, a J.D. from Indiana University School of Law, and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Amin practiced law for five years before transitioning to art, studying at the School of the International Center of Photography and Whitney Independent Study Program. Together, Amin and Nitasha are MTL Collective, a collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, organizing, and action in its art practice. MTL is a founder of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Direct Action Front for Palestine, Global Ultra Luxury Faction, and most recently MTL+, the collective facilitating Decolonize This Place. Currently, MTL is in post-production of an experimental feature film, Unsettling (forthcoming end of 2020).
NOAH FISCHER
Brooklyn-based artist Noah Fischer connects interdisciplinary art practice with financial politics. His work has been seen with and without invitation at Guggenheim, MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, ZKM and in the 56th Venice Biennale, 7th Berlin Biennale and the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Fischer is a member of the art collective Occupy Museums. He is currently working on a speculative fiction novel called Demos.
JEANNE VAN HEESWIJK
Jeanne van Heeswijk is an artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalize the local”. Her long-scale community-embedded projects question art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, discussions, and other forms of organizing and pedagogy in order to assist communities to take control of their own futures.
VIVIEN SANSOUR
Vivien Sansour is an artist, storyteller, researcher and conservationist. She uses image, sketch, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and to advocate for seed conservation and the protection of agrobiodiversity as a cultural/political act. Vivien founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library as part of this work with local farmers, and has been showcased internationally, including at the Chicago Architecture Biennale, V&A Museum in London, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, and the Venice Art Biennale. A culinary historian and enthusiastic cook, Vivien works to bring threatened varieties “back to the dinner table to become part of our living culture rather than a relic of the past”. This work has led her to collaborate with award winning chefs, including Anthony Bourdain and Sammi Tamimi. Born in Jerusalem, Vivien lives in both Bethlehem, Palestine and Los Angeles, USA.
RADICAL CARE
JULY 2020
Our inaugural Artists for Artists Masterclass Radical Care consisted of a suite of lectures from Advising Artists Terike Haapoja, Ahmet Ogut, and Stefanos Tsivopoulos, and six workshops beamed across 17 cities including Manila, Santiago, Tunis, Sydney, New York, and Berlin. We were thrilled by the international interest in our program, and by the strength of applications received from over 30 different countries. The final group consists of 24 exciting international artists working across a broad range of practices, and from diverse backgrounds and geographies.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
ADVISING ARTISTS
Terike Haapoja
Terike Haapoja is a Finnish visual artist based in New York. With a specific focus in encounters with nature, death and other species, Haapoja’s work investigates the existential and political boundaries of our world. In recent projects, Haapoja’s work has been focusing more explicitly on how the otherness of nature and other species is constructed by political, theoretical and societal structures. The notion of a world that is deeply rooted in the physicality and co-existence of beings and their multiple lifeworlds is at the core of Haapoja’s politically and ethically driven practice.
Haapoja represented Finland in the Venice Biennale in 2013 with a solo show in the Nordic Pavilion, and her work has been awarded with several prizes. An experienced lecturer, Hapooja is Adjunct Professor at NYU and Parsons Fine Arts and has given invited presentations and keynotes in the programs of Creative Time Summit, Documenta, Venice Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Elia Conference, ISCP, among many others. Haapoja’s writings have been published internationally and she is the co-editor of several books on art’s role in culture policies, technology and the environment.
Ahmet Ogut
Born in Silvan, Diyarbakir, Ahmet Öğüt (*1981) lives and works in Amsterdam and Istanbul. Following Diyarbakir Fine Art high school, he completed his BA from the Fine Arts Faculty at Hacettepe University, Ankara, MA from Art and Design Faculty at Yıldız Teknik University, Istanbul. An internationally-renowned sociocultural initiator and conceptual artist, Öğüt consistently seeks out collaborators from outside of the art world, finding unique ways to grapple with complex social issues ranging from migration to civil unrest with a sense of humor.
Öğüt works across different media and has exhibited widely, more recently with solo presentations at YARAT Contemporary Art Space (2020), Kunstverein Dresden (2018), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2017), Chisenhale Gallery (2015); Berkeley Art Museum (2010); and Kunsthalle Basel (2008). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including In the Presence of Absence, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020); Zero Gravity at Nam SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art (2019); Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale (2018); the British Art Show 8 (2017-2015); the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015); Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art(2008).
Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale together with BanuCennetoğlu.
Stefanos Tsivopoulos
Stefanos Tsivopoulos is a Greek visual artist, filmmaker, writer, and educator, living and working between New York, Amsterdam and Athens. Tsivopoulos is internationally recognized for his experimental research-based films, that merge archival materials, and allegoric narratives, to investigate some of the most urgent sociopolitical and economic issues today. He has written, directed and produced over 30 short and medium length films, in different countries..
Tsivopoulos participated in renowned periodical exhibitions, including the 2nd CAFAM Biennial Beijing; Manifesta 8, Murcia; 6th Thessaloniki Biennial; EVA Limmerick Biennial; 2nd Xinjiang Biennale; the 1st Athens Biennial; 6th Fotobiennale Mannheim; the 4th Riga Quadrennial; and the quinquennial dOCUMENTA 14, in Kassel. Recent solo exhibitions of his work include Bellas Artes Projects Bataan, Manila (2017); MuCEM, Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseilles (2014); Cycladic Museum of Art, Athens (2014); MoMUS State Museum of Thessaloniki (2014); Stella Art Foundation, Moscow (2013); ISCP, New York (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (2008)..
In 2013, Tsivopoulos represented Greece in 55th Venice Biennial with History Zero; a multimedia installation consisting of a film in three episodes, an architectural installation, and a publication.
Tsivopoulos teaches contemporary video art at Parsons Fine Arts in New York, and he has been visiting lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie, the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, the Bard College, and the Cooper Union.