Fresh Art International

Jillian Hernandez gives voice to girls and women of color in her 2020 book Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment. In this episode, you’ll hear how she has been delving into the “aesthetic hierarchies” of femme culture for more than a decade. Research, critical writing, and personal experience come together to enrich this vividly illustrated book. Hernandez shares a few stories of her own fraught adolescence, along with those of Women on the Rise!, a community of teenage girls for whom she and local artists created opportunities to collide with art, through the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. 

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Chonga Girls, “Chongalicious,” Crystal Pearl Molinary, “Off the Chain”

Related Episodes:
Puerto Rico Rising—Resisting Paradise https://freshartinternational.com/2021/02/24/puerto-rico-rising-resisting-paradise/
The Awakening https://freshartinternational.com/2021/01/27/women-artists-curators-awakening/
Topical Playlist—Art and Feminism https://freshartinternational.com/2020/10/28/topical-playlist-feminist-art/

Related Links
Jillian Hernandez, University of Florida https://people.clas.ufl.edu/jillianhernandez/
Duke University Press https://www.dukeupress.edu/aesthetics-of-excess
Women on the Rise!: Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami https://mocanomi.org/2012/03/women-on-the-rise/

Aesthetics of Excess—with Jillian Hernandez

“In a way, I've always been working on the edge of both a larger dominant society engagement and a deep engagement with my communities. My focus is really digging deep into blackness.”
Andrea Fatona, 2021

Toronto-based curator and scholar Andrea Fatona has been addressing institutionalized racism on her own terms since the 1990s. Our conversations across time reveal the depth of her commitment to making visible the full spectrum of Black culture in Canada. Engaging with Black communities to build an online repository while addressing algorithmic injustice, she and her collaborators are illuminating the work of Black Canadian cultural producers on the global stage.

Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio 
Special Audio: Hogan’s Alley (1994), courtesy Vivo Media Arts, Andrea Fatona and Cornelia Wyngaarden and Whitewash (2016), Nadine Valcin, courtesy the artist

Related Episodes:
The Awakening https://freshartinternational.com/2021/01/27/women-artists-curators-awakening/
New Point of View at the Venice Art Biennale https://freshartinternational.com/2015/05/21/fresh-talk-new-pov-at-the-venice-art-biennale/

Related Links:
The State of Blackness https://thestateofblackness.format.com/
Andrea Fatona/OCADU https://www2.ocadu.ca/feature/dr-andrea-fatona-being-human-together-in-the-world
Vivo Media Arts https://www.vivomediaarts.com/
Okui Enwezor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okwui_Enwezor
All the World’s Futures/56th Venice Art Biennale https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2015/biennale-arte-2015-all-worlds-futures
Cornelia Wyngaarden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Wyngaarden

The State of Blackness—with Andrea Fatona

“This Persian Garden Project will be providing visitors with a private, yet public environment in which to engage important social and cultural issues by gathering and gardening through conversations, screenings, readings, and communal performances. I’m imagining it as a hub for activism and healing—a home for all marginalized, mediated, untold, and less celebrated stories.”
Bahar Behbahani, 2021


The art of Brooklyn-based artist Bahar Behbahani responds to the history and character of the complex landscapes that surround her—reflecting on her cultural origins and immigrant experience. Conversations with the artist across time reveal how she has immersed herself in the form, poetry, and politics of the Persian garden. Now, her vision extends to designing and programming a public environment for activism and healing where she aims to engender a communal sense of hospitality, resistance, and resilience. When Behbahani reaches her goal, a new Persian garden will flourish in Manhattan—cultivated by the hands and minds of artists and historians, thinkers and doers from cultures around the world that call New York City home.
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Bahar Behbahani, Suspended (2007) and All Water Has a Perfect Memory (2019), courtesy the artist

Related Episodes:
The Awakening https://freshartinternational.com/2021/01/27/women-artists-curators-awakening/
Bahar Behbahani on Politics and Persian Gardens https://freshartinternational.com/2017/02/02/bahar-behbahani-on-politics-and-persian-gardens/

Related Links:
Bahar Behbahani http://www.baharbehbahani.com
Ispahan Flowers Only Once (2019-ongoing) https://www.baharbehbahani.com/public_art-ispahan.html
All Water Has a Perfect Memory/Wave Hill Public Garden https://www.wavehill.org/calendar/bahar-behbahani-all-water-has-a-perfect-memory
9/11 Memorial https://www.911memorial.org/

A Persian Garden in Manhattan—with Bahar Behbahani

In 2022, members and guests of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) travel from around the world to Kentucky, in the Appalachian region of the United States. The uninitiated might consider this a remote context for conversations around international contemporary art. Instead, we find Appalachia a nuanced cultural and geographic space.

The third episode in our IKT Kentucky series explores the evolving and inclusive concept of “Global Appalachia” presented during IKT’s 2022 gathering. Generations of curators, poets, and artists from a world of cultures have found their way across time and space to build communities in this region. Here and now, Global Appalachia is where their 21st century contemporaries continue to shape a boundless future, with a diverse array of perspectives on the meaning of home and tradition.

Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio

Music: 

Delving the Deep by BlueDot Sessions, 

Gettie's Wash by Blue Dot Sessions,

Tan Mountain by Blue Dot Sessions

Voices, in order of appearance: Rebecca Adkins Fletcher, Frank X Walker, Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido, Vian Sora, Ceirra Evans, Anissa Lewis, Hannah Drake, Karlota Contreras Koterbay, Erin Lee Antonak

Global Appalachia—Where Culture and Geography Shape Community

With six independent curators, we explore a growing trend in the field of contemporary art. We discover that the covid epidemic and a global economic recession have not weakened their resolve to navigate the field on their own terms. Viewing challenges as opportunities, these women are channeling their creative freedom into projects that maximize resources and engage new communities.

What sparked this story: In September 2022, the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art welcomed more than 40 new members during IKT’s annual Congress in Kentucky. Most are independent curators. Listen to find out what motivated this shift.

Featuring: Monique Long, Juste Kostikovaite, Lindsey Cummins, Amethyst Rey Beaver, Sarah Burney, Claire Schneider

Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio

Music: Danver County by Blue Dot Sessions

Curators Declare Independence at IKT Kentucky

In 2022, members and guests of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art make their way to Kentucky, in the United States. Our first days are packed with urban experiences — museum, gallery, private collection, and studio visits, a symposium — and sunset tours of two outdoor sculpture collections. 

A small group continues the adventure on a road trip that takes us to the far eastern edge of Kentucky. As we cross the state, we learn firsthand the challenges of growing up and producing culture in the region. We bear witness to creative resilience and community in remote spaces and places in Appalachia. We bear witness to creative resilience and community in remote spaces and places where rich stories are told through art, film, music, and theater. 

Voices: Orlando Maiike Gouwenberg, Jessica Bennett Kincaid, Carolina Rubens, Jeff Chapman Crane, Sharman Crane, Kate Handslik

Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio

Music: Danver County by Blue Dot Sessions

Earl Gilmore - This Little Light of Mine, on “From the Depths of my Soul,” 1977, June Appal Recordings

Nimrod Workman & Phyllis Boyens - I am a Travelin' Creature, on “Passing Through the Garden," 1974, June Appal Recordings

Pigmeat Jarret – Look at the People (Little Girl), on “Look at the People,” 1979, June Appal Recordings

Ralph Stanley – I am a Man of Constant Sorrow

Sarah Kate Morgan - Goodbye My Honey I'm Gone, on “Old Tunes & Sad Songs," 2022, self-released

Sparky Rucker – Come on in my Kitchen, on “Cold & Lonesome on a Train,” 1977, June Appal Recordings

Special Sound: Stranger with a Camera, Elizabeth Barrett, 2000 Appalshop; Shift Change, Higher Ground Theater, 2021

Lure of Local Arts in Appalachia

In February 2023, we travel to the Arab Emirates for the first time. We’re here to witness and celebrate Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. Four years in the making, the exhibition is ambitious and expansive. More than 100 artists from 70 countries are presenting projects in 19 venues across the emirate. Seventy of those projects are new commissions.

The memory and influence of Nigerian born art historian, author, educator, and curator Okwui Enwezor is deeply felt, despite his physical absence. The Sharjah Art Foundation had invited Enwezor to curate this iteration of the biennial. He envisioned the exhibition title before his death in 2019.

Sharjah Art Foundation Director Hoor Al Qasimi was 22 years old when she met Okwui Enwezor and experienced his non-western curatorial model at documenta 11, in Kassel, Germany. Enwezor’s impactful perspective on postnational hybridity and global modern identity inspired Al Qasimi to lead the Foundation and the Biennial in new directions. 

On the 30th anniversary of the Biennial, we sit down with Al Qasimi to talk about the inclusive ethos that we find in the art experience of Thinking Historically in the Present.

Story: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio

Special Audio: Hassan Hajjaj with Mestre Pastel, Open Capoeira Session, Arts Square, Sharjah

Sharjah Biennial 15—with Hoor Al Qasimi

In February 2023, we travel to the United Arab Emirates for the first time. We’re here to witness and celebrate Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. Four years in the making, the exhibition is ambitious and expansive. More than 100 artists from 70 countries are presenting projects in 19 venues across the emirate. 

One afternoon, we wander through Sharjah’s heritage area to Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, the personal residence of a local pearl merchant and his family from the mid-19th century until the 1970s. In a small courtyard outside his multi chambered installation, we meet artist Shiraz Bayjoo to talk about how his project engages history—a pervasive theme in this Biennial.

The artist shares the storied past of the Indian Ocean and the island archipelagos of Mauritius and Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa. Keep listening to hear the orientalist tropes that he disrupts in Searching for Libertalia, a project that recovers the history of a purported pirate colony founded in the late 17th century.

Our conversation with Shiraz Bayjoo reveals one artist’s approach to Thinking Historically in the Present. Searching for Liberatalia materializes a cultural narrative that might come closer than real history to showing us the way through rupture, dislocation, and uncertainty to a place of growth and renewal.


Story: Cathay Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Searching for Libertalia, Sharjah Biennial 15

Searching for Libertalia—with Shiraz Bayjoo

Listening to St. Louis—Counterpublic Art Triennial 2023

Key words: cultural history, Indigenous, Black lives, earthworks, St. Louis, public art, listening, healing, triennial, restoration, reparation, holistic engagement, commemoration, rematriation, contemporary art, creative intervention, podcast


Today, we take you to St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States of America. Home of the Gateway Arch, an Emblem of Manifest Destiny, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Emblem of Manifest Destiny. St. Louis is nicknamed “‘Mound City”’ because of the number of earthworks built by Indigenous peoples there, before the westward expansion of colonizers conspired to flatten them. Where caves beneath the city sheltered freedom seekers traversing the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Where, from 1959 to 1972—in the span of less than 20 years—residents of the historically Black neighborhoods Mill Creek Valley and Pruitt-Igoe Homes were displaced in the name of urban development and public safety. 

Where, in 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced. Nearly a decade later, in the year 2023, current events reveal that in this city and this state, the sanctity of civil and human rights remains tenuous on every level. 

What role can a public art triennial play in such a troubled context? 

A microcosm of the disruptive forces at play in cities across the United States today, St. Louis offers fertile ground for creative interventions that are healing—restorative in nature.

The civic exhibition Counterpublic takes on the challenge. To prepare for the 2023 event, the triennial’s home team committed to a year of listening sessions with a range of public constituents. A report integrated into the exhibition catalogue outlines local interest in holistic engagement with public memory, commemoration, and acknowledgement; the rematriation of Indigenous land; and reparative futures. In response, for three months, thirty projects animate the urban landscape along six miles of Jefferson Avenue. 

In this episode, we follow that throughway from south to north to share healing elixirs healing we discover at the heart of seven Counterpublic projects along the way. Listen to the ways they honor and amplify strength, beauty, and hope at the core of reemergent cultural histories in St Louis.

Story: Cathy Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio courtesy Nokosee Fields, X, Raven Chacon, Stefani Jemison, Griot Museum of African American History, Torkwase Dyson, Mendi and Keith Obadike, SlowDrag audio "Joy and Everything," remixed by K Kudda, and Counterpublic, Mood Unit by  by Blue Dot Sessions

Listening to St. Louis—Counterpublic Art Triennial 2023

Today, we introduce a few of the artists and activists energizing the 2023 Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival in Kyrgyzstan. They give voice to the issues, ideas, and intentions that shape their truly creative approaches to mitigate pollution. Their projects illuminate the potential for artists everywhere to build community and drive sustainable solutions to our global environmental crisis. 

From the city of Bishkek to the settlement of Altyn Kazyk, we discover myriad ways that socially engaged artists encourage awareness and action. They bring us together from around the world to experience, understand, and create true moments of beauty and meaning—giving us hope for a future that holds clean air, land, and water.

Acknowledgement: In Fall 2023, Cathy Byrd recorded the voices in this episode during her residency with CEC ArtsLink in Central Asia.

Sound Design: @anamnesisaudio

Featured Voices: Sto Len, Ronja Roemmelt, Mishiko Solakauri, Begimai Zhunusova, Ellen Harvey, Bermet Borubaeva, Aimeerim Tursalieva

Special Thanks to the Bishkek Sanitary Landfill—Director Nurlan Djumaliev, Head of Municipal Enterprise Section Arzykulov Almaz Toktomukhanmedovich, Landfill Museum Co-Curator Samat Marso

Special Audio: Live musicians performance at the People’s Landfill Museum and the Bandistan Ensemble

Related Episodes: 

Public Water—with Mary Mattingly - 
https://freshartinternational.com/2021/05/19/public-water-mary-mattingly/

Topical Playlist—Sustainability and the Environment 
https://freshartinternational.com/2020/03/24/sustainability-environment/

Related Links:

CEC ArtsLink
https://www.cecartslink.org/

Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival 2023
https://www.cecartslink.org/art-prospect-trash-5-festival/

Tazar
http://www.tazar.org/en/about/

EU Compliant Landfill to Open in Bishkek
https://www.europeaninterest.eu/the-first-eu-regulation-compliant-landfill-will-open-in-bishkek/

Poetic Interventions Point to Pollution in Kyrgyzstan

Where in the world can you express yourself freely, share cultural knowledge, test inventive art practices, and build a transnational creative community in only 10 days time?
During an intensive CEC ArtsLink program in Kazakhstan, 23 artists and curators from across the region and the U.S. seize the moment to think deeply about their socially engaged projects. Our home base for talks, workshops, field expeditions, and performances is the bULt Collective rave space.

Paying attention to inclusion and access, issues and ideas, concept and creation, they begin to imagine new possible futures for collective art practices in Central Asia and beyond.

Acknowledgement: In Fall 2023, Cathy Byrd recorded voices and sounds for this episode during her CEC ArtsLink residency in Central Asia.

Sound Design: @anamnesisaudio

Featured Voices: bULt Collective, Lydia Matthews, Nara Bikinna, Zilïa Khansura, Laura Nova, Will Owen, Kristine Diekman

Special Audio: Bandistan Ensemble, DJ Nemezida; DJs inspired by traditional Kazakh music/Almaty, Kazakhstan; Nara Bikinna recording of a Tatar gathering/Tyumen, Siberia; recording of felting workshop with Zilïa Khansura/Oak Gallery, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Collective Soundwalk Mixdown/Almaty

Co-Creating Community in Kazakhstan—with CEC ArtsLink

Cathy Byrd meets artist Jack Sanders at his studio in East Austin. From Cleburne, Texas, Jack studied at Auburn University and the School of Architecture at the University of Texas before he founded his company DesignBuild Adventure. Hear Jack talk about his muse Sam Mockbee, the Rural Studio, El Cosmico, and his commitment to slow architecture, storytelling and dreaming.

Jack Sanders on Slow Architecture, Storytelling, and Dreaming

Cathy Byrd meets Sarah Oppenheimer at the Baltimore Museum of Art to experience Sarah’s stunning architectural interventions. The BMA’s contemporary art curator Kristen Hileman creates unique relationships between Sarah Oppenheimer’s new commissions and other work from the collection, including a lyric 2010 sound art piece by Turner Prize winner Susan Philipsz. Our ambient recording of Susan Philipsz’s The Shallow Sea is a special feature of this podcast.

Sarah Oppenheimer on Architectural Interventions

This Fresh Talk episode features Camille Norment, an American-born artist that lives and works in Norway. We recorded the episode inside the Nordic Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Norment’s project animates a space designed to converse with the surrounding topography, weather, and natural light. Titled Rapture, her elegant, immersive sonic environment evokes both harmony and dissonance.

Camille Norment on her Sonic Environment

Akosua Adoma Owusu, an American filmmaker of Ghanaian descent, talks about her film Kwaku Ananse, a standout project in the 2014 biennial exhibition known as Prospect New Orleans. The title of the film refers to Anansi (spider) tales that originated from the Ashanti people of present-day Ghana. In Owusu’s fable, the lead character is female, and her father is part spider, part man.

Akosua Adoma Owusu On Her Film Kwaku Ananse

Anawana Haloba, an artist born in Zambia and based in Norway, talks about vanishing cultures and her project for the 32nd Sao Paulo Biennial. Her poetic sound installation titled Close-Up poses questions on the subject of globalization and the loss of cultural diversity. Recorded on Skype, this episode is the first in a new series we’re producing for Contemporary And, a platform for international art from African perspectives.

Anawana Haloba on Vanishing Cultures

Follow along as we travel through Miami Beach as part of our Art Basel preview. First, we hear how New York-based artist Naama Tsabar and Tom Tom magazine publisher Mindy Abovitz’s art and music worlds collide. Next, we visit Spinello Projects to catch up with Naama Tsabar and learn about Transitions #3, her Miami debut solo exhibition running concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach 2016. Finally, we learn about the UNTITLED. Art Fair from the Programming Director Amanda Schmitt.

Miami Art Week 2016 Edition - 30Nov2016

Live from Untitled Art Fair - Sharon Louden and Hrag Vartanian

Iranian born, New York based artist Bahar Behbahani talks about the layers of poetry and politics she discovered while researching the legendary Persian garden. Her solo exhibition at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College reveals how the idyllic refuge became entangled with American espionage and a 1953 political coup in Iran. Highly relevant considering the mounting intensity of current global tensions, the hidden agendas and coded behaviors exposed in Bahar Behbahani's work might well be the blueprint for a new political barrier erected this week: the executive order of a restrictive, anti-Muslim United States immigration policy.

Bahar Behbahani on Politics and Persian Gardens

Nato Thompson, curator and critical writer, talks about his new book Culture as Weapon, and how politicians, corporations and artists use cultural aesthetics to channel their agendas and motivate collective actions.

Nato Thompson on Culture as Weapon

Marcus Gammel, with Deutschlandradio Kultur, talks about Every Time A Ear Di Soun, an exciting radio program he co-curated with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung for the documenta 14 art exhibition in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany, from April to September 2017.

Marcus Gammel on Every Time A Ear Di Soun

On this live streaming show, host Cathy Byrd calls in from Paris to Jolt Radio to share some of her sonic adventures in Berlin, the city where she spent two of her six weeks in Europe this year. Hear drummers performing in the Karneval der Kulturen and encounter the music scene in Mauer Park. Learn about the sound art featured on Deutschlandfunk Kultur from curator Marcus Gammel. Meet Ahmet Ögüt, one of the hosts on the documenta 14 radio program coming to Berlin. Visit the studio of artist and musician Satch Hoyt to experience his Unpacking Sonic Migrations: From Slave Ship to Spaceship performance. Follow Cathy on her visit to SAVVY Contemporary where she meets co-artistic director Elena Agudio, and listen to Oye record store owner Markus Lindner talk about Berlin’s vinyl culture.

Sounds of Berlin - Radio Version

We explore sounds of the international art exhibition documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany, extends its reach to Athens, Greece. This program is the latest in the series we’ve been curating from field recordings captured on our recent expedition to Europe and Scandinavia.

Featuring violinist Ali Moraly and artists Emeka Ogboh, Rasheed Araeen, Rick Lowe, Joar Nango, Otobong Nkanga, and William Pope.L.

Sounds of documenta 14

Today, we take you to Paris for a studio visit with French artist ORLAN (www.orlan.eu). Surrounded by her books, sculptures, paintings and photographs, we talk about her evolving relationship with technology.

Credits:
Host & Producer: Cathy Byrd
Voice Over: Emilia Garth
Sound Editor: @anamnesisaudio

Orlan On Art Tech

Today, we take you to the Arsenale, a historic shipyard and main venue for the 57th Venice Art Biennale. In the New Zealand pavilion, we hear artist Lisa Reihana speak on reversing the colonial gaze in her work Emissaries. http://www.freshartinternational.com

Host & Prodcuer: Cathy Byrd
Sound Editor: @anamnesisaudio

Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Colonial Gaze

This radio show about Architecture with a Sense of Place features conversations with artists and architects whose work responds to cultural, historical, sociopolitical and environmental influences on our built environment. Featured: Jack Sanders, Design Build Adventure, Austin; Jaya Kader, KZ Architecture, Miami; David Hartt at Graham Foundation, Chicago; Sarah Dunn, Urban Lab, Chicago; Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbai, India; Marshall Brown, Marshall Brown Projects, Chicago; Jimenez Lai and Joanna Grant, Bureau Spectacular, Los Angeles; and Gerard & Kelly at Farnsworth House.

Photo: Cathy Byrd with David Hartt, in the forest at Graham Foundation

Architecture With A Sense Of Place

Today, we take you to Venice, Italy, to meet Hong Kong artist and composer Samson Young. He tells the stories behind Songs for Disaster Relief, his creation for the Hong Kong Pavilion at the 57th Venice Art Biennale. Fake news, meta fiction, politics, pop music and philanthropy are all at play in the multi-part installation that begins in the courtyard. The pavilion’s inter-connected environments mock the music industry’s imperialist history of do-good songs while expressing appreciation for the effort and exposing the artist's drive to find real caring for the Other in today's xenophobic world.

Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief

Alba Triana, a Colombian-born composer and sound artist based in Miami, Florida, introduces three of her exquisite sound and light installations: Music on a Bound String questions whether or not the act of listening is indispensable to the musical experience. Microcosmos animates a cymbal to create an immersive vibrational experience. The interactive Electronic Gamelan invites visitors to perform one of the artist's compositions. Listen to discover her trans-disciplinary approach to the ever-evolving field of sound art.

Sound editor: @anamnesisaudio

Alba Triana on Experimenting with Sound and Light

Are we the last real humans? We consider this question in a conversation about art as a speculative science. Join us to ponder our uncertain future.
 
Laura Randall, scholar in residence at the Rubell Family Collection, shares the dark side of the exhibition Still Human, introducing artists who imagine a world where we never die and wonder if mayonnaise is alive. With curator Joey Orr (now at the Spencer Museum of Art), artist Andrew Yang contemplates our place in the cosmos and talks about how much sand it takes to build an homage to Carl Sagan inside the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Listen for the sound of your possible future in audio tracks from projects by artists Jon Rafman, Cécile B. Evans and Andrew Yang.
 
Related exhibitions: Post Human, 1992, Deitch Projects; In the Holocene, 2012, MIT List Center, What Absence Is Made Of, 2017-2018, Hirshhorn
 
Featured Sound: Jon Rafman, Poor Magic, courtesy the artist and the Rubell Family Collection; Cécile B. Evans, What the Heart Wants, courtesy the artist and Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark; Andrew Yang, White Noise, courtesy the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Art and Our Uncertain Future

In 2018, Locust Projects invited the Detroit-based design duo known as root of two to bring three headless chickens to roost in Miami. For six months, Cezanne Charles and John Marshall embellish the Magic City skyline with their public art and digital engagement project.

Previously presented in France and the United Kingdom, Whithervanes translate the traditional weathervane into a 21st century radio transmitter. Mounted on rooftops in downtown, the Design District and Biscayne Boulevard, the four-foot tall birds change colors and direction in response to the climate of fear propagated by the media. These are tech-savvy chickens. They scan the Internet for alarmist keywords, collecting information on topics from violence to economic crises to natural disasters. You can follow their “neurotic, early worrying system”, or N.E.W.S. on the Whithervanes Twitter account.

Connecting art with streaming social media and news technology, Whithervane designers Cezanne Charles and John Marshall invite us to think about the emotional impact of the digital information that controls our view of the world.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Related episodes:
Art of the Everyday: https://www.freshartinternational.com/2018/07/09/art-everyday/
Art and the Rising Sea: https://www.freshartinternational.com/2018/01/10/art-and-the-rising-sea/
Report from Miami Art Week 2017: https://www.freshartinternational.com/2017/12/13/report-from-miami-art-week-jolt-radio-13dec2017/

Whithervanes: The Art of Anxiety

Today, we invite artists, curators, a media specialist, and an invigilator to talk about complex art that challenges the resources of traditional exhibition spaces. Their backstories reveal how building relationships—through eco-systems, architecture, choreography, media archaeology and virtual community engagement – make exceptional art encounters possible.

Featured voices: Brian Sonia-Wallace, Sarah Oppenheimer, Dara Friedman, Rene Morales, Kevin Arrow/Obsolete Media Miami, María José Arjona, Alexandra Pirici, Rea McNamara

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special sound: María José Arjona, Alexandra Pirici, Rea McNamara, and Tony Halmos | Photography courtesy María José Arjona, The New Museum, New York and Art Basel Cities Week Buenos Aires

Related Episodes:
Dara Friedman on the Theater of Your Mind - https://www.freshartinternational.com/2018/01/18/dara-friedman-on-theater-of-mind/
Sarah Oppenheimer on Space and Light - https://www.freshartinternational.com/2016/10/27/sarah-oppenheimer-space-light/
Sarah Oppenheimer on Architectural Interventions - https://www.freshartinternational.com/2012/11/19/fresh-talk-sarah-oppenheimer/

Related Links:
Pierre Huyghe: UUmwelt, Serpentine Galleries - https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/pierre-huyghe-uumwelt
Pierre Huyghe, LACMA - http://www.lacma.org/node/17674
Sarah Oppenheimer, Baltimore Museum of Art - https://artbma.org/exhibitions/sarah-oppenheimer
Sarah Oppenheimer: S-281913, Perez Art Museum, Miami - https://www.pamm.org/exhibitions/sarah-oppenheimer-s-281913
Dara Friedman: Perfect Stranger, Perez Art Museum, Miami - https://www.pamm.org/perfectstranger
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present, Museum of Modern Art, NY - https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/964
María José Arjona: To Be Known as Infinite - https://www.mambogota.com/en/exposicion/hay-que-saberse-infinito/
Alexandra Pirici, Leaking Territories, Skulptur Projekte Münster - https://www.skulptur-projekte-archiv.de/en-us/2017/projects/193/
Alexandra Pirici: Co-natural, New Museum, NY - https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/alexandra-pirici
Alexandra Pirici: Aggregate, Art Basel Cities, Buenos Aires - https://www.artbasel.com/cities/catalog/Alexandra-Pirici
Brian Sonia-Wallace - https://rentpoet.com/
Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2016 - https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/Dreamlands
Sheroes - http://fuckyeahsheroes.tumblr.com/
Obsolete Media Miami - http://omm305.org/

Staging Complex Art

When art, activism and poetry come together in social sculpture, they inspire entire communities. Creating this dynamic is the O, Miami poetry festival's raison d'être. We sit down with visual artists Najja Moon and Michelle Lisa Polissaint and O, Miami's managing director Melody Santiago Cummings to talk about their work and the spectrum of site-specific projects created for the month-long festival that’s been transforming the city's cultural landscape, one poem at a time, since 2011.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Michelle Lisa Polissaint, Moonlight Moanin'; O, Miami: Ivan Lopez, The Last Ride of José Martí; Mia S. Willis, "hecatomb;" Sandra March, with Jose Olivarez, The Beach is a Border; The Sunroom

Related Episodes:
Poetry, Art and Community Justice https://freshartinternational.com/2018/12/24/poetry-art-community-justice/
Cultural Complexity in Little Haiti https://freshartinternational.com/2018/02/21/where-all-are-welcome-cultural-complexity-in-little-haiti/

Related Links:
O, Miami http://www.omiami.org/
Najja Moon http://gypsysocialite.com/
Michelle Lisa Polissaint http://www.michellelisap.com/

Who’s The Fool? How To Patch A Leaky Roof: Moon and Polissaint create a Little Haiti Cultural District version of the blue umbrellas distributed for free in the Design District, a burgeoning retail development that is rapidly reducing the footprint of a community established by thousands of Haitian immigrants beginning in the 1950s. The artists imagine a dual role for the 1,000 bright red umbrellas they had fabricated. Mobile shelters from the rain and shields against the impact of urban development, the Little Haiti umbrellas feature a Creole proverb alluding to the false promise of urban development in the district. As if placing a flag on the moon, or drawing a line in the sand, Moon and Polissaint proclaim the identity of the community they call home and construct a monument to those fighting to preserve the district. The artists will go door to door with their gifts, inviting their neighbors to join in addressing the larger issue of gentrification in Miami. 

O, Miami projects introduced in this episode: Who's the Fool?; Chiquita Poemas; The Last Ride of José Martí; The Beach is a Border; The Sunroom, poetry in schools

Public Poetry Inspires Communities from Miami to Key West

What does "creative resilience" mean for curators in the year 2019? 

One evening, we decide to find out. Setting up a temporary recording studio in a poolside cabana, at a Miami Beach hotel, we sit down with a dozen curators and cultural producers to document their stories. In this marathon recording session, you’ll hear curatorial strategies for engaging new communities, increasing the visibility of underrepresented artists, and addressing some of today's most pressing social, political and environmental challenges.

We recorded this special program when the annual Congress of the Association of International Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) took place in the United States for the first time. Curators from the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean gathered in Miami, Florida, to explore the contemporary art scene and participate in a symposium about art and resilience in the climate crisis.

Voices in the episode: (alpha order) Eva Asp, Bayardo Blandino, Aldeide Delgado, Yucef Merhi, Thale Fastvold and Tanja Torjussen, Michele Fiedler, O'Neil Lawrence, Lorie Mertes, Najja Moon, Marina Reyes Franco, Sofía Shaula Reeser-del Rio

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: (in order of appearance) Spectres in Change: FoAM / Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney; The Quilt Performing Arts Group for Beyond Fashion exhibition, National Gallery of Jamaica; Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas (Hacked!) 2000-2004; The BLCK Family Dinner

Related Episodes:
Art and the Climate Crisis with IKT Miami https://freshartinternational.com/2019/04/19/art-and-the-climate-crisis-with-ikt-in-miami/
Art and the Rising Sea https://freshartinternational.com/2018/01/10/art-and-the-rising-sea/
Curating in a Time of Global Change: IKT Norway https://freshartinternational.com/2018/03/01/curating-art-in-a-time-of-global-change-ikt-norway/
Sounds of Contemporary Art in Norway with IKT https://freshartinternational.com/2019/04/08/sound-art-and-contemporary-culture-with-ikt-in-norway/

Related Links:
International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art https://www.iktsite.org/
FoAM Spectres in Change https://fo.am/activities/spectres-in-change/
Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros http://saps-latallera.org/en/
Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas (Hacked!) 2000-2004 http://www.cibernetic.com/art/project/maccsi/index.html
National Gallery of Jamaica https://www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryofJamaica/
Resisting Paradise https://apexart.org/exhibitions/reyes-franco.php
Locust Projects http://locustprojects.org/
The BLCK Family http://theblckfamily.com/about/
Gävle Konstcentrum http://www.gavlekonstcentrum.se/
International Cities of Refuge Network https://www.icorn.org/
SALA MAC / Contemporary Visual Arts Center of Women in the Arts in Honduras http://www.facebook.com/salamujeresdelartecontemporaneo/
Women Photographers International Archive http://wopha.org/
Locus Art http://www.locusart.org/

Curating and Creative Resilience with IKT in Miami

We shadow CYJO, a Miami-based  Korean American visual artist, as she navigates the complex maze of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2018. Her goal is to discover and document exceptional work in the photographic medium for the “Art Basel Miami Week Diary” that she contributes to the bilingual online publication L’Œil de la Photographie (The Eye of Photography).

Inside the fair, Gian Paolo Paci, of Paci Contemporary, in Bresi, Italy, introduces us to his gallery’s featured artist: American photographer Nancy Burson. Burson created some of the earliest photographic portraits using computer-morphing technology. 

Jared Quintan, Associate Director of Rhona Hoffman, in Chicago, deconstructs the symbolism in a photographic wall installation by Lorna Simpson, an African-American photographer and multimedia artist known for her singular approach to portraiture. Quintan also talks about intimate portraits by African American artist Deana Lawson, whose photographs reveal the body’s ability to channel personal and social histories.

A few weeks later, we meet CYJO in her studio, a light-filled loft that looks out over Biscayne Bay in Miami. We’re here to learn more about how the artist explores the complexities of identity, beauty and belonging through her own photography, video and text. 

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Related Episodes:
Modern Portrait of Black Florida https://freshartinternational.com/2018/05/14/modern-portrait-black-florida/
Jillian Mayer on the Nude Selfie Project https://freshartinternational.com/2014/10/23/fresh-talk-jillian-mayer/
Adam Schreiber on the Spatial Dynamics of Photography https://freshartinternational.com/2013/02/04/fresh-talk-adam-schreiber/

Related Links:
CYJO http://www.cyjo.net/
Art Basel Miami Beach https://www.artbasel.com/
L’Œil de la Photographie https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/cyjos-art-basel-miami-week-diary-day-1-bb/
Paci Contemporary https://www.pacicontemporary.com
Rhona Hoffman Gallery https://www.rhoffmangallery.com

CYJO on the Complexities of Photographing Identity

Today, we take you to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, also known as SAIC. We’re here to meet participants in Imagining Tomorrow. The yearly experiential learning opportunity brings together students from schools in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States and Pakistan.

During each two-week seminar, they gather in a different host community to envision possible futures through design thinking. The clients are local organizations who ask the students to imagine solutions to real-life challenges—such as environmental sustainability and immigrant integration. 

Chicago-based artists Kirsten Leenaars and Laura Davis co-created this international project. A lecturer at SAIC, Leenaars introduces us to three students who have experienced Imagining Tomorrow in Utrecht, Netherlands and Karlsruhe, Germany. Their studies range from film, animation and video to architecture and fashion.

In our conversation, you’ll hear how in a range of cultural contexts, students and educators alike forge meaningful relationships and learn to navigate business and government protocols. Crossing international borders to collaborate and innovate, students bring creativity outside the classroom—engaging with communities and learning to lead. 
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

SAIC - Imagining Tomorrow

Meet fresh voices from Miami! With educators Giselle Heraux and Jahné King, we talk about art, storytelling, and the next generation of creative podcasters. Heraux and King will set the stage for each episode in our Fall 2020 Student Edition.
 
The Student Edition
In 2019, we initiated the Student Edition with visits to art schools and universities in the United States and Canada. Recorded at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago/Chicago, Wayne State University/Detroit, and Ontario College of Art and Design University/Toronto, episodes in our Spring 2020 Student Edition revolve around how students engage communities.

During the Spring 2020 semester, Fresh Art founder Cathy Byrd introduced podcasting to a group of University of Miami students. As a team, they explored the City’s cultural landscape to record and produce the Miami Moves Me podcast. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, field expeditions came to an abrupt halt and classes went online mid-semester. More than a few Miami Moves Me stories convey before-and-after perspectives. A set of eighteen episodes represents their research, field recordings and interviews. Our Fall 2020 Student Edition  features a selection of episodes from the Miami Moves Me archive.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Miami Moves Me podcast

Fresh Voices Miami

In today’s prologue to our Fall 2020 Student Edition, University of Miami senior Melissa Huberman tells the story of Art in the Time of Corona. She recorded with Fresh Art International founder Cathy Byrd, local artist Dana Musso, and team members from the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, to find out how some artists, curators, and educators are responding to the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic. Listen to hear some of the ways they are creating and implementing meaningful art encounters for their communities. 

The Story Behind The Story
In 2020, hundreds of thousands of people across the United States and around the world have been sickened and forced into quarantine by the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. The pandemic continues to affect us profoundly—both physically and economically. All of us have had to adjust how we live and work, teach and learn. 

In January 2020, Fresh Art founder Cathy Byrd began to introduce a group of University of Miami students to podcasting in a course titled Once Upon a Time in Miami. With Byrd, a team of nine students explored cultural sites across the city to record and produce the Miami Moves Me podcast. Due to the pandemic, at mid-semester, field expeditions came to an abrupt halt and classes went online. A set of eighteen episodes represents the UM student team’s research, field recordings, and interviews. Art in the Time of Corona is the prologue to our Fall 2020 Student Edition. 

Producers: Melissa Huberman/Miami Moves Me, Giselle Heraux and Jahné King/FreshArtINTL
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Featured Voices: Cathy Byrd, Dana Musso, Leilani Lynch, Julia Rudo, Kylee Crook

Related Episodes:
Miami Moves Me/Art in the Time of Corona https://soundcloud.com/meilixia/art-in-the-time-of-corona-miami-moves-me?in=freshartinternational/sets/miami-moves-me
Fresh Voices Miami https://freshartinternational.com/2020/07/29/fresh-voices-miami/v

Related Links:
Miami Moves Me https://freshartinternational.com/2020/04/09/fresh-stories-miami-moves-me-podcast/
Institute of Contemporary Art Miami https://icamiami.org
Locust Projects http://www.locustprojects.org
Pérez Art Museum Miami https://www.pamm.org
Bass Museum of Art https://thebass.org
Lowe Art Museum https://www.lowe.miami.edu

Art in the Time of Corona

Fresh Art International with curator Cathy Byrd features Conversations About Creativity with Joan Jonas, Jason Moran, Irene Hofmann, William Pope.L, Theaster Gates, Tania Bruguera, Stephen Vitiello, Camille Norment, Franklin Sirmans, Cheryl Pope, Lynda Benglis, Jillian Mayer, Sylvie Fortin, Andrea Bowers, Remy Jungerman, Louis Grachos, and more.

Fresh Art International

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