The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the release of the seventh issue of Portable Gray, a publication that draws on the work of the Gray Center, a research center for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars.
Published twice annually (fall/spring) by the University of Chicago Press, Portable Gray is a forum for experimenting with two genres of publication: the scholarly journal and the art magazine. Each issue is shaped by a theme, which is treated elastically and through myriad forms: artworks, essays, interviews, reflections, photography, poetry among others.
About this issue
Edited by the Gray Center’s Interim Director, Ghenwa Hayek (2020–21), this issue of Portable Gray is built around her FarBar initiative. Conceived as a way to maintain the ethos of the Center’s regular Sidebar public conversation series for the pandemic moment, FarBar was a vehicle for artistic and scholarly dialogue with practitioners from around the world. Over the course of nine months, the Gray Center staged online conversations with artists, writers, musicians, scientists, and curators based in Egypt, Puerto Rico, Haiti, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Lebanon, the Philippines, Los Angeles, and Chicago; these discussions revolved around translations, indigeneity, vision and perception, ecological and economic collapse, logics of extraction, crisis, and memory and the archive. This issue reflects the dynamic conversations that took place among our contributors near and far and other related projects from the past year.
Editor’s Plaisance
Ghenwa Hayek, free article
Quilting Voices
Nathalie Joachim, Emily Hooper Lansana, and Jacqueline Stewart, free article
The Anecdote
Mark Philip Bradley and Lee Weng-Choy
The Hunters
Kittima Chareeprasit and LIR
Register of Deeds
Patrick Flores
Camera Sense
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Sidney R. Nagel, and Jennifer Ding
Neologicon: A Cosmic Codex for Anthropocenic Alterations
Time Extraction Unit (TEU)
It’s the Hard Flip
Alexis Sablone, Mark Gonzales, and Kyle Beachy
The Good Juice
Ryan Lay and Aram Sabbah
In the Hands of Skaters
Nick Sharratt and Mike Schuh
A Language Act
Amira Hanafi
Suffering at the Speed of Invisibility, the Poetry of Omar Kholeif
Omar Kholeif
The Floor, The Couch, The Toys
Maud Lavin
Swan Songs for Busan: The Chicago Chapter
Stephanie Cristello
Building Worlds, Losing Friends (In Memoriam Lauren Berlant and Robert Bird)
Zachary Cahill, free article
For the online issue and subscription information click here.
Executive Editors: Seth Brodsky & Ghenwa Hayek / Editor-in-Chief: Zachary Cahill / Senior Editor: Mike Schuh / Managing Editor: Naomi Blumberg / Design: David Khan-Giordano / ISSN 2637-8361
About the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry
The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars. Gray Center activities take place all over campus (encompassing various divisions, departments, and programs), across the community, throughout the city, and beyond. Through its various programs—including the Mellon Residential Fellowships for Arts Practice and Scholarship, exploratory research initiatives, the monthly Sidebar conversation series, Gray Sound, an experimental music and sound performance series, international conferences, and institutional collaborations—the Gray Center seeks to foster a culture of innovation and experimentation at the intersection of arts practice and scholarship.
Press contact: Mike Schuh, Gray Center Assistant Director of Fellowships and Operations, at mikes1 [at] uchicago.edu.
