[-empyre-] Thanks to guests Week 2 and welcome to Week 3

Tue Nov 20 10:59:37 AEDT 2018

As we prepare to transition into Week 3 of this month's discussion of Duration: Passage, Persistence, Survival, I would like to thank this past week's guests: Jolene  Rickard, Wu Hongbin, Renate Ferro, and Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon.

For this coming week, we welcome Hans Baumann (US/ Switzerland), Ruby Chishti (US/Pakistan), Denise Green (US), and Annie Lewandowski (US).

Hans Baumann (US/Switzerland)
Hans Baumann is a Swiss-American artist and land art practitioner. His work is informed by extensive research in evolutionary dynamics and human geography, as well as his longstanding interest in geological phenomena and nonhuman timescales.  Baumann holds degrees from Harvard University and Prifysgol Caerdydd and has lectured at a number of institutions, including the Universität Bern Institute of Art History, ArtCenter College of Design and the University of Washington College of Built Environment. His projects and essays have been published in a variety of periodicals, including e-flux architecture, Diacritics, The Navajo Times and SciArt Magazine, and he has received grant and project support from institutions such as the Antipode Foundation for Radical Geography, Landscape Research Group and the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Hans currently resides in Los Angeles.  For the Cornell Biennial, Hans joined Karen Pinkus in launching "Crystalline Basement," a two-part artwork reflective of the complexities of deep geothermal heating.

Ruby Chishti (US/Pakistan_
Ruby Chishti is a Pakistani American visual artist based in New York City. She is primarily a representational sculptor, and was educated at the National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan.  Over the last 18 years, she has produced a series of lyrical-sculptures and installations that touch on tenacity and fragility of human existence, migration, Islamic myths, gender politics, memory, universal theme of love, loss and of being human.   Ruby has held residencies internationally and her installations, sculptures, and site- specific works have been exhibited at Asia Society Museum NY, Queens Museum, Aicon Gallery London & New York), Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India, ArcoMadrid, Art Hong Kong, India Art fair and The Armory Show NYC to name a few.  Chishti’s work has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers and books including Unveiling the visible by Salima Hashmi, Memory-Metaphor-Mutations by Salima Hashmi and Yashodhra Dalmia and The eye still seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art by Salima Hashmi & Matand Khosla.   For the Cornell Biennial, Chishti served as Designer-in-Residence for the Department of Fabric Science and Apparel Design and mounted a one-person exhibition, "Narratives of Memory: A Conversation with Time."

Denise Green (US)
Denise Nicole Green is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design and the Director of the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection.  Professor Green's research uses ethnography, video production, archival methods and curatorial practice to explore production of fashion, textiles, and visual design.  Professor Green received a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of British Columbia. With the Ethnographic Film Unit at UBC and Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations communities, she directed a series of documentary films exploring textiles, identity and Aboriginal title.    At Cornell, Denise is also an American Indian Studies field faculty member and directs the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection (CCTC), which houses more than 10,000 items of apparel, accessories and flat textiles dating from the eighteenth century to present, including substantial collections of functional clothing, Western fashion and ethnographic costume. The CCTC advances knowledge of the social, cultural, historical, economic, scientific, technological and aesthetic aspects of fashion, textiles and apparel design through exhibition, research, teaching and preservation. For the Cornell Biennial, she is curating a fabulous exhibit of garments lent by influential American female political leaders, "Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline."

Annie Lewandowski (US).
Annie Lewandowski is a composer/performer who works in songwriting and improvisation, often exploring where they intersect. She has performed and recorded with improvisers including Fred Frith, Theresa Wong, Caroline Kraabel, the London Improvisers Orchestra, CAGE, Tim Feeney, and Doublends Vert. Her band Powerdove has released nine recordings, including 2017’s “War Shapes” (Murailles Music) with Chad Popple and Thomas Bonvalet, and 2018’s “Bitter Banquet” (Fo’c’sle) with David Yearsley, Theresa Wong, and Russell Greenberg.  In 2018, the Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial premiered her piece “Cetus: Life After Life,” for whale song and the Cornell chimes, inspired by work with bioacoustics researcher Katy Payne. Lewandowski has performed at festivals and venues across the United States and Europe, including the Casa da Música (Porto, Portugal), the Hippodrome (London), Musica Nelle Valli (San Martin Spino, Italy), the End of the Road Festival (Dorset, England), the Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), the Frieze Arts Fair (London), Avalon (Los Angeles), and Redcat (Los Angeles). She is a 2014 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow.

So welcome to -empyre- Hans, Ruby, Denise, and Annie.  We're looking forward to hearing your voices this week.

Tim

Timothy Murray
Director, Cornell Council for the Arts and Curator, CCA Biennial
http://cca.cornell.edu
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art 
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu <http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/>
Professor of Comparative Literature and English

B-1 West Sibley Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853

On 11/16/18, 11:20 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Renate Terese Ferro" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of rferro at cornell.edu> wrote:

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    Jolene wrote…
    “The term 'resurgence' can be applied to the robust recovery of Cayuga culture in this moment as redress for the 'burnt earth' campaign waged against these peoples at the birth of America… this artistic intervention seeks to reclaim a distinct culture space.”

    Thank you Jolene for a preview of the upcoming intervention of the Haudenosaunee Nation near “Cayuga.” Many of us who live on this rich land of the Haudenosaunee are humbled by the incredible expanse of its natural resources.  Amidst the acreage surrounding us I realize how important our role of caretaker is. I am grateful for the rich fertile land and clear water that surround us and there are many days I feel the aura of those who planted the land before me. 

    Can you tell our –empyre- subscribers a bit more about the artists and the work that you refer to?  Would love to hear a bit more. 
    Best.  Renate

    On 11/14/18, 10:04 AM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Timothy Conway Murray" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

        ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
        Thank you for joining us, Jolene.  It is so fantastic to share your voice and work with the -empyre- community.

        What you term as the 'resurgence' of Cayuga culture and art provides a crucially poignant resonance to the notions of "passage, persistence, survival" that frame the "Duration" theme of our month's discussion, which also is the theme of the 2018 Cornell Biennial in which your project participates.  Most telling is your juxtaposition of the "averted erasure" of Cayuga culture with the "hegemonic blending of culture" which far too often papers over the distinctness of cultural space.

        I think this is a point that Kate Brettkelly made in her introductory post last week in reflecting on her writing on "works of art by Darren Almond, Nicholas Mangan and Olafur Eliasson [that] have similarly centred on seemingly wondrous encounters with geological durations or glacial deep time. But looking more critically at this artistic interest in deep time, I have wondered whether it risks the presumption of an absolute, universal frame of reference. Does it presuppose a primordial time that is rather conveniently indifferent to histories of social inequality and subjugation? More pointedly, when we celebrate the deep time of earth, do we actively overlook the durations and experiences of indigenous peoples?" 

        In our conversations over the years, I recall your making similar contrasts between the Tuscarora reverence of the land and sustenance of indigenous corn in resistence to blended residues of the "burnt earth" campaign waged against the Cayuga and Tuscarora in our region.

        I'm wondering if you would mind saying a bit about how this is inflected in your personal artistic practice as well.

        Best,

        Tim

        Timothy Murray
        Director, Cornell Council for the Arts and Curator, CCA Biennial
        http://cca.cornell.edu
        Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art 
        http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu <http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/>
        Professor of Comparative Literature and English

        B-1 West Sibley Hall
        Cornell University
        Ithaca, New York 14853

        On 11/13/18, 5:01 AM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Jolene K. Rickard" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of jkr33 at cornell.edu> wrote:

            ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
            Nya:weh (Thanks) to Tim Murry and Renate Ferro for inviting me to be a part of the -empyre-soft_skinned space. 
            My participation in Duration: Passage, Persistence, Survival is as convener in collaboration with artists from the GAYOGOHÓ:NÓ or Cayuga Nation diaspora. As noted by Tim Murry, Cornell is located within Cayuga homelands but does not fully recognize it's obligation to 'territory.' The Cayuga were dispossessed and forced from their homeland in 1779 by a systematic military campaign during the American Revolution known as the Clinton-Sullivan Expedition. The Cayuga sheltered throughout Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Nations for over 229 years and have now embarked on the remarkable resistance of returning to their territorial space. 
            	The relationship between Indigenous peoples and the United States is relevant but not at the core of the collaborative project with Cayuga artists. This tentative assemblage of these artists will be the first time since their forced removal that they will be coming together as "Cayuga" artists. The process of conversation, reclamation of Cayuga space and history will be at the center of a proposed installation at Akwe:kon, an Indigenous student residence on campus. Marking space as Cayuga will be an important action in this collaboration, but there isn't a distinct aesthetic Cayuga practice but their relationship to place is richly detailed in their language. The term 'resurgence' can be applied to the robust recovery of Cayuga culture in this moment as redress for the 'burnt earth' campaign waged against these peoples at the birth of America. 
            	I recognize that this emblematic experience of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler states as a global condition. Indigenous peoples have endured the modern epoch of colonialism and are emerging from an averted erasure. But, at a moment when most have accepted the hegemonic blending of culture, this artistic intervention seeks to reclaim a distinct culture space. How will this return to Cayuga be read in an arts context insistent upon the flattening of epistemological and ontological difference? 

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