Horizontal Idol Conversation draws on a format derived from exhibition artist Loren Britton’s studio practice, centering collaborative knowledge production and learning from multiple perspectives as the primary mode of study. For this program, they will invite people from across disciplines to respond to idols and acts of worship. Horizontal Idol Conversation will include guest curator Emily Colucci, and exhibition artists Britton, Caroline Garcia, Tiffany Smith, as well as guest collaborators Erika Bernabei and Tavia Nyong’o.
Loren Britton is an interdisciplinary artist, thinker and curator based in-between Berlin, DE and New York City, US. They are concerned with on/offline, trans*gender people, class, how to communicate and intersectional trans*feminism. They investigate things by reading, holding, playing, and translating to cross, disciplinary and class borders. Britton holds a MFA from the Yale School of Art, US and further info about their work can be found at: lorenbritton.com
Caroline Garcia (New York City / Sydney) is a culturally promiscuous, interdisciplinary artist. She works across live performance and video through a hybridized aesthetic of cross-cultural dance, ritual practice, new media, and the sampling of popular culture and colonial imagery. She has presented work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Manila Biennale, Art Central Hong Kong, and the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, all 2018; Spring Break Art Fair, Olsen Gruin Gallery, The Luggage Store Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church and Creative Time Summit X, all 2019. Caroline was a resident at the EMPAC in 2016/17, MASS MoCA 2019, and is the recipient of the American Australian Association’s AUSART Fellowship for 2018.
Tiffany Smith is an interdisciplinary artist from the Caribbean diaspora working with photography, video, installation, and design to create photographic portraits, site responsive installations, and assemblages focused on identity, representation, cultural ambiguity, and displacement. Smith’s work has been exhibited at National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, The Bronx Museum, MassArt, The National Gallery of Jamaica; during Photoville, Photo NOLA, and Spring Break Art Show; and most recently in solo exhibitions at Recess Assembly, NY, and Montserrat College of Art, MA. Tiffany Smith is a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Interdisciplinary Work from The New York Foundation for the Arts.
Erika Bernabei’s work bridges good intentions/personal experience and accountability/antiracist impact. She is a founder and co-principal of Equity & Results, a multiracially led organization that helps government and nonprofits use an antiracist results methodology to build and sustain their capacity to ensure their work benefits communities of color. As a white, queer woman, Erika’s work pushes beyond understanding racism to seeing how it manifests in everything we do and methodologically undoing it. Prior to Equity & Results, Erika served as an Assistant Commissioner in the New York City Department of Homeless Services and worked at PolicyLink, a national racial equity focused nonprofit. She has a phd in Education from New York University. Erika and her partner, artist Kerry Downey, live in NYC, and love travel, community, books, Beans and being surrounded by trees.
Tavia Nyong’o teaches performance studies at Yale University, and is the author of two award-winning books: The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (2009) and Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (2018).
Featured image: Caroline Garcia, Flygirl [S01E05] (Live Recording), 2017, single-channel video, color, sound, 32:00 minutes. Courtesy the artist.