'my favorite software is being here' installation in exhibition at ISCP (September 22- Dec 11, 2020)

Photo Credit: Dario Lasagni

Photo Credit: Dario Lasagni


The Earth Is Blue Like an Orange

Opening Reception: Tuesday, September 22, 2020, 4–7 PM

The International Studio & Curatorial Program announces the opening of The Earth Is Blue Like an Orange, a group exhibition featuring the work of eight artists in residence in ISCP’s Ground Floor Program. 

Reserve your free timed ticket here. Tickets are required.

The Earth Is Blue Like an Orange, a title derived from poetry by French surrealist Paul Éluard (1895-1952), evokes the collective memory of 2020 through eight artists’ differing viewpoints. In an unparalleled period characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a heightened collective awareness of widespread racial injustice, the individual works reflect a range of concepts and emotions. Largely comprised of newly created works, the exhibition presents Alison Nguyen’s speculative fiction telling the story of a simulacral subaltern who has been conceived by an algorithm and raised in isolation by the Internet; a cyanotype work by Bundith Phunsombatlert addressing the subject of border crossings, using national flags; Carlos Franco’s compilation of media landscapes without specific geolocation, showing divergent populations at odds with their habitats; an ongoing painting by Wieteke Heldens that catalogues colors based on personal experience; Svetlana Bailey’s visual representation of what are now everyday questions about human connection (e.g., how do we love without touch?); an account of a woman’s personal story mirroring communal experiences of suffering, violence, and memory in Civan Özkanoğlu’s installation project; Habby Osk’s sculpture highlighting the precarity between stability and tension; and a cinematic installation by Moko Fukuyama in which framing, illumination and other variables serve as metaphors alluding to the many responsibilities of the storyteller.

These artists in residence are all part of a program that offers subsidized workspace and professional development for New York City-based artists. Launched in 2015, Ground Floor at ISCP takes place on the first floor of the institution, in tandem with ISCP’s International Residency program, forming an integral part of a dynamic community of artists and curators from all over the world.

Artists in the exhibition: Svetlana Bailey, Carlos Franco, Moko Fukuyama, Wieteke Heldens, Alison Nguyen, Habby Osk, Civan Özkanoğlu, and Bundith Phunsombatlert. 

The number of visitors to ISCP galleries will be limited, with timed viewing. Visitor protocols are in the Visit section of the website here.

The Earth Is Blue Like an Orange is organized by Alexandra Sloan Friedman, Programs Associate, ISCP.


ISCP Open Studios 2020

Opening Hours: Tuesday, August 25, 5-7 pm EST and Wednesday, August 26, 12-2 pm EST

Download the Summer Open Studios Program here.

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Summer Open Studios is a two-day presentation of international contemporary art presented by the 29 artists and 2 curators from 23 countries currently participating in the residency program. Join us to see their many different projects, and be part of discussions with these visionary arts professionals, on Zoom. Individual discussions will be facilitated by four guest hosts: Dan Cameron, Jane Ursula Harris, Anna Harsanyi, and Larry Ossei-Mensah.

My studio at the International studio & Curatorial Program

My studio at the International studio & Curatorial Program

Director's Reflection in Filmmaker Magazine

I wrote a thing for the summer issue of Filmmaker Magazine in which I reflect on the pandemic and the impact its had on my work. An excerpt:

“In 2019 I began making a video work about a computer-generated woman living and working in isolation in a virtual void. From the apartment where she’s been placed, this simulacral subaltern known online as ‘Andra8’ survives through various forms of digital labor–working as a virtual assistant, a data cleanser, a content creator, and a life coach. The domestic space from which she is constantly surveilled and monitored looks like the inoffensive love child of the results of a ‘Mid-century modern’ Pinterest search, a mental health hospital, and a perpetually sunny L.A. Airbnb. In other words: A kind of antiseptic neoliberal purgatory.

At the time I thought the premise of my work-in-progress was fantastical though not entirely unrelatable. Issues surrounding outsourced digital labor, surveillance, and algorithmic cultural flattening have circulated in public discourse for years. But somehow in contemporary life the effects of these on the individual psyche get drowned out by a multitude of distractions. Creating a world where these elements exist in isolation in a sort of vacuum was compelling to me.

I couldn’t have predicted that within a few swift and bewildering weeks in March of 2020 elements of my speculative fiction would quickly come too close to our reality. At present many of us are living in conditions similar to those of Andra8: We reside in state-mandated isolated domestic spaces, the privileged employed work from home, and we are more dependent on privatized technology from which we’re constantly surveilled than ever before. We interact with jpegs and pixels of our friends and family and co-workers…”

Full article here (pages 24-26):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q3gx8avmj22nhim/FMM_SUMMER_2020_WEB.pdf?dl=0