2021 Visiting Artists

Stanford University’s Office of the Vice President for the Arts is pleased to announce six new visiting artists for winter and spring 2021. Hosted by departments and programs across the institution for largely virtual engagements, these exceptional artists provide a stimulus in artistic thinking and aesthetic perspectives in disciplines from the humanities to sciences and engineering. Each artist is supported in the development of transformative new work through access to the unparalleled intellectual resources of a leading research university. Together, these visiting artist and residency programs integrate the arts into campus life and exemplify the ways Stanford is leveraging its distinctive academic expertise and cultural assets to empower discovery, creativity, and diverse voices. 

Interdisciplinary and intermedia artist Janani Balasubramanian, hosted by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts and the Stanford Compression Forum, will be teaching a spring quarter course entitled Peering into darkness: critical research practices in contemporary art & astrophysics. Balasubramanian will also be investigating ethical-mythical frameworks related to emergent research on DNA-based information storage, particularly on questions of time, legacy, marvel, and the eternal.

Rashaad Newsome’s residency, hosted by the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, centers on the expansion and improvement of Being, a social humanoid AI. Through this work, Newsome is exploring the power embedded in Blackness through creative expression born out of Black sociality, as well as the art-historical erasure of African and African diasporic contributions to what we understand as Abstraction in the West today.

Visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron, hosted by the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, is the recipient of the 2020-2021 Presidential Residency on the Future of the Arts. Ore-Giron, whose work draws on motifs from indigenous and craft traditions alongside aesthetics from the 20th-century avant-garde, will participate in a series of public panels and screenings, conduct student workshops, and develop new work for an upcoming exhibition at the Anderson Collection.

Arab-American playwright Betty Shamieh, hosted by the Department of Theater and Performance Studies with support from the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, will participate in a long-duration developmental workshop of her newest play As Soon As Impossible. Students, faculty, and staff will create a virtual lab environment, leading to the Stanford world premiere production in the spring. 

Artist and technologist Amelia Winger-Bearskin, hosted by the Native American Studies program with support from the Native American Cultural Center and the Graduate School of Education, will continue her work developing ethical frameworks for software development and co-creating systems of care and community accountability through code utilizing Indigenous ways of knowing and being. She will conduct workshops, guest lecture, and present her work to the public in the annual Pamela Hanitchak Lecture.

Composer, performer, and media artist Pamela Z, hosted by the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) with support from the Department of Anthropology, will conduct technical and practice-based research on live electronic processing, sampled sound, digital looping techniques, and networked performance. She will collaborate with campus music ensembles, guest lecture, conduct a masterclass for the Department of Music, and participate in a virtual Black Lives Matter concert.

Betty Shamieh, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, and Pamela Z are supported by the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund, established by Steven Denning in honor of Roberta Bowman Denning and her dedication to the arts. This program is a high-impact, comprehensive, and sustained investment in artistic excellence, creating a cohort of talent that significantly contributes to the campus environment and provides a unique integrative educational experience at Stanford.

For more information on the artists and how to participate in related public programming, visit arts.stanford.edu.