Introduction
The 2014 liquid blackness Symposium is organized around the ideas of liquidity that inspired the constitution of the research group. The event will foster a conversation between artists, scholars and curators surrounding ideas of aesthetic liquidity and blackness in contemporary visual and sonic culture. The event the realization of our goal to create accessible scholarship for different communities within academia and beyond—specifically, scholars, artists, curators and our local community. Thus, all of the 2014 Symposium events are free and open to the public.
Over the course of two days, the event will include two keynote speakers: curator, Hamza Walker and scholar, Derek Conrad Murray; a dialogue with a panel of multimedia artists: Nettrice Gaskins, Nikita Gale, Carla Aaron Lopez, Yanique Norman, and Fahamu Pecou; a night of dance and video performances by the Gathering Wild Dance Company, Indya Childs with T. Lang Dance, and bubba carr; and throughout the entire month of April, a new media installation featuring work by Consuela Boyer, Chr!s Ferguson, Joey Molina, and Fahamou Pecou.
Lecture by Hamza Walker
T. Lang Dance and Gathering Wild Dance Company Performances
Special Guests
Keynotes
Hamza Walker, Associate Curator, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago
Derek Conrad Murray, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at UC Santa Cruz
Artists Panel
Carla Aaron-Lopez, also known as “King Carla,” is a multidisciplinary artist engaged in photography, collage, and video. She was born in 1983 in Charlotte, North Carolina. She completed her undergraduate work in Visual Communications and Art at North Carolina Central University. Later, she attained her Master’s Degree in Photography and Printmaking at SCAD in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s received awards mostly for writing during her undergrad. Currently, she is working as an art educator in Charlotte, NC.
Nikita Gale is an American conceptual artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work explores the ways in which desire, identity and memory are mediated through language, material and image. She holds a BA in Anthropology (Archaeological Studies) from Yale University and exhibits regularly throughout Atlanta, Georgia and New York City, New York. She has participated in residencies at The Center for Photography at Woodstock in Woodstock, New York in 2011 and at the Vermont Studio Center in 2013 and is currently in the Studio Artist Program at The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. She currently serves on the board of directors for BurnAway, an Atlanta-based non-profit arts publication. Her work can be found in numerous collections including the Howard Greenberg Gallery collection in New York. Gale has had work featured in ART PAPERS, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Headline News, and Oxford American and has been profiled and reviewed by numerous publications including Artforum.com, Frank151, Atlanta Magazine and Creative Loafing. In 2014, Gale was named an “Artist to Watch” by NBC’s The Grio. Gale is represented by {Poem88} in Atlanta, GA.
Nettrice Gaskins is a Ph.D. Candidate and researcher in Georgia Tech’s Digital Media Program. Her work investigates culturally situated arts-based learning and new media, their invention, and use in underrepresented ethnic communities of practice. This includes the use of digital media tools and platforms, and cultural art forms. She received a BFA in Computer Graphics, with Honors, from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Art & Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a writer/columnist for Art21, the producer of the Peabody award-winning PBS series, Art in the Twenty-First Century. Gaskins has presented her work around the world and was a Digital STEAM researcher at the Smithsonian.
Yanique Norman is a multimedia artist who is completing a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from Georgia State University. Her work is in the collection of the High Museum of Art, private collections in Georgia, and in the public collections of Hammond’s House Museum and Clark Atlanta University.
Fahamu Pecou is a visual artist and scholar whose works combine observations on hip-hop, fine art and popular culture. Pecou’s paintings, performance art, and academic work addresses concerns around contemporary representations of Black masculinity and how these images impact both the reading and performance of Black masculinity. Currently a Ph.D. student in Emory University’s Institute of Liberal Arts (ILA), Pecou maintains an active exhibition schedule as well as public lectures and speaking engagements at colleges and museums nationwide. His work is featured in noted private and public collections including; Nasher Museum at Duke University, The High Museum of Art, Paul R. Jones Collection, Clark Atlanta University Art Collection, The West Collection, and Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.
Mammal Gallery Artists and Performers
Gathering Wild Dance Company
Choreographer: Jerylann Warner
Dancing Artists: Jennilee Garcia Green, Jennifer Tharp Hogan, Keri Holland, Clarie Horn, Cara O’Grady, Sally O’Grady
Music: Lake Street Dive
T. Lang Dance
Choreographer: T. Lang, Artistic Director
Dancing Artist: Indya Childs
Composer: John Osborn
Bubba Carr
Film by bubba carr
Music by Jungol
Window Project Featured Artists
Consuela Boyer, Blaque Woman
Chr!s Fergumson, From the Series Martin Martyr
Joey Molina, genderFLOW
Fahamou Pecou, OVEREXPLOSE(D)
Event Schedules
Friday, April 11, 2014
Lecture by Hamza Walker – 6pm
Department of Communication
Georgia State University
25 Park Place
Room 830
Atlanta, GA
30302
Wine Reception featuring Dance Performances and Video Projection – 7:30pm
Mammal Gallery
680 Murphy Ave SW #3064
Atlanta, GA 30310
Gathering Wild Dance Company - Heart of Palm
T.Lang Dance - Post Up – an excerpt*
bubba carr - Flō
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Lecture by Derek Conrad Murray “Afro-Kitsch and the Queering of Blackness”– 3pm
Artists’ Panel – 4:30pm
Nettrice Gaskins
Nikita Gale
Carla Aaron Lopez
Yanique Normal
Fahamu Pecou
Department of Communication
Georgia State University
25 Park Place
Room 830
Atlanta, GA
30302
Release Party – 7pm
Featuring DJ Kemit
Sound Table
483 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30312
April 2014
Througout the month of April several artist will be shwing their work at the Window Project – the new media installation space curated by Georgia State University’s DAEL (Digital Arts Entertainment Lab).
Featured Artists:
Consuela Boyer, Blaque Woman
Chr!s Ferguson, From the Series Martin Martyr
Joey Molina, genderFLOW
Fahamou Pecou, OVEREXPOSE(d)
Special Thanks
Department of Communication, Georgia State University
Mammal Gallery
Gathering Wild Dance Company
T. Lang
BookLogix
