[-empyre-] October: This Mess We're In Week 2

[Tarsh Bates]

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.bates at 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.