Design at Mason Gross

The theme of the panel organized for Fall 2016 is a response to the contemporary situation and discussions around the masses of people moving around the globe. Whether to seek greater economic or social opportunity, global warming or through forced migration due to conflict or persecution, 244 million people migrated across borders in 2015.

In Reflections on Exile Edward Said writes, “Modern Western culture is in large part the work of exiles, émigrés, refugees. In the United States, academic, intellectual, and aesthetic thought is what it is today because of refugees from fascism, communism, and other regimes given to the oppression and expulsion of dissidents.”

Said’s reflections remain accurate in the age of global war today. He describes modern warfare, imperialism, and the quasi-theological ambitions of totalitarian rulers, all of which precisely refer to the current, tragic situation in the Middle East. Said expresses particular interest in the creative character of exile, in that much of life in exile is taken up with compensating for disorienting loss by creating a new world to rule. He observes, “It is not surprising that so many exile seem to be novelists, chess players, political activists and intellectuals.”

Said further relates his observation about the condition of exile to occupations that require a minimal investment in objects, but rather place a great premium on mobility and skill, thereby suggesting that exile is implicitly tied up with movement.

The discussion will be moderated by Sara Raza whose recent show “But A Storm Is Blowing from Paradise” is currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum thru Oct 5, 2016. We hope to bring together three artist with her whose practice address the contemporary notion of mobility on a global scale.

Recommended reading prior to the panel:

What is Freedom by Hannah Arendt

Reflections on Exile by Edward Said

Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, a documentary film directed by Ada Ushpiz, …will be screened the week that follows in the spirit of this theme.

Thursday, November 3, 2016, 6:30–8:30 P.M.
Room 110
MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
CIVIC SQUARE AUDITORIUM

33 LIVINGSTON AVENUE – NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ

Pizza and Popcorn will be served. The screening will be followed by a discussion moderated by Ardele Lister, and joined by some members of the faculty.

Biographies of the Panelists and the Moderator

Sara Raza

is a curator, writer and educator. She is currently the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Middle East and North Africa, based at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Sara has curated several international exhibitions and projects for biennials and festivals, including Collateral Events at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). Sara writes for numerous publications and is the longstanding desk editor for West and Central Asia of ArtAsiaPacific magazine.  Formerly, she was the head of education at Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan, founding head of curatorial programs at Alaan Art Space, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and curator of public programs at Tate Modern, London (2006–8). She earned her MA in Art History and Theory, and BA in English Literature and History of Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London.  Awards include the United Kingdom Arts Council’s Emerging Curator’s Award at the South London Gallery (2004) and winner of the 11th ArtTable New Leadership Award (2016). Sara is an artist adviser for ISCP in New York and the author of Punk Orientalism: Central Asia’s Contemporary Art Revolution, set to be published in 2017 by Black Dog Publishing, London.

Mariam Ghani

is an artist, writer, filmmaker and teacher. Her research-based practice spans video, installation, photography, performance, and text. Her exhibitions and screenings include the Rotterdam, CPH:DOX and transmediale film festivals, the Sharjah and Liverpool Biennials, dOCUMENTA (13) in Kabul and Kassel, MoMA in New York, the National Gallery in DC, the St. Louis Art Museum, and the CCCB in Barcelona. Ghani has collaborated with artist Chitra Ganesh since 2004 on Index of the Disappeared, an experimental archive of post-9/11 detentions, deportations, renditions and redactions; with choreographer Erin Kelly since 2006 on the video series Performed Places; and with media archive collective Pad.ma since 2012 on the Afghan Films online archive. Ghani has been awarded NYFA and Soros Fellowships, grants from Creative Capital, Art Matters, NYSCA, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, among others. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from NYU and an MFA from SVA. Ghani currently teaches in the Social Practice MFA program at Queens College and the Film Studies program at the Graduate Center, and is a Visiting Artist at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School.

Daniela Kostova

is an interdisciplinary artist who holds M.F.A. from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, NY and the National Art Academy in Sofia. Her work is focused on hybrid cultures and architecture, resulted from migrations and changing global socio-cultural conditions. It addresses issues of geography and cultural representation, the production and crossing of socio-cultural borders, and the uneasy process of translation and communication. Kostova has exhibited at venues such as Queens Museum of Art (NY), Institute for Contemporary Art (Sofia), Kunsthalle Wien (Austria), Antakya Biennale (Turkey), Centre d’art Contemporain (Geneva), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, (Torino) and Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), among the others. Her work is reviewed in New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art International and Art in America. In addition, Kostova curated the BioArt Initiative–art & science project of the Arts Department and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at RPI. She is also a co-founder of the Bulgarian Collaborative, interdisciplinary collective that includes artists, musicians, literati and architects. Kostova lives and works in NYC. She is the Director of Curatorial Projects at Radiator Gallery and a Board Member of CEC Artslink, New York.

Mirene Arsanios

is a writer who was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She co-founded the collective 98weeks Research Project in Beirut and is the founding editor of Makhzin, a bilingual literary magazine. Her work has appeared in The Animated Reader, The Outpost, and The Rumpus, among others. Arsanios was the recipient of the Enizagam fiction prize (2014), and Forum Fellows, Art Dubai, Dubai, U.A.E (2015). She was an artist-in-residence at the CCA, Warsaw, Poland (2015), and at the Villa Romana, Florence, Italy (2012). Arsanios received her MA from Goldsmiths College, London, and an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College. She lives in New York where she is currently a writer-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.