RAW Académie: Infrastructure

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania presents RAW Académie at ICA: Infrastructure, directed by Linda Goode Bryant. Grounded in Dakar, Senegal at RAW Material Company, RAW Académie is a residential program for the research and study of artistic and curatorial practice and thought that is rooted in the question: “How do we learn from each other?” For the ninth session of its Académie, RAW will relocate its staff and organization to Philadelphia in an experiment in institutional exchange, alternative pedagogy, and hospitality. 

Over the course of seven weeks, Goode Bryant will work in the ICA gallery alongside an interdisciplinary roster of visiting faculty and international fellows-in-residence, RAW staff Marie Hélène Pereira and Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Philadelphia arts leaders, and Penn faculty and students to reimagine the possibilities for an arts infrastructure through discussions, workshops, and brainstorms. The session’s investigations will be explored and collected over time in the ICA galleries and shared through a series of free public-facing events, both in-person and virtual, resulting in an exhibition that will remain on view through May 22, 2022. Audiences will be invited to follow along, engage in dialogue, and share their own needs, desires and ideas for how to create new models for the arts in and beyond institutions.

Linda Goode Bryant writes:

“For centuries, the infrastructure that props up today’s global production and market for art has been based on a business model that adheres to the fundamental principles and values of material gain and worth. Despite changes in the ways cultures and art have evolved during that same period, this infrastructure has essentially remained the same. What if a different type of infrastructure were to be envisioned?

Using the public art museum as both a point of connection and departure from art’s current infrastructure, and situated at ICA, fellows will engage with and begin to answer this core question and others. The curriculum of the sessions will consist of presentations, visits to cultural organizations, and workshops with invited faculty.”

Events:
Arthur Jafa, March 16, 6pm
Linda Goode Bryant, Marielle Ingram, Marie Hélène Pereira, Dulcie Abrahams Altass, and Alex Klein, March 18, 6pm
Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, March 23, 6pm
Louis Massiah, April 8, 6pm
Gudskul, April 13, 6pm
Sarah Workneh, April 15, 6pm
Bryant Wells: Compression —> Transmission, April 20, 6pm
Closing Event with Linda Goode Bryant and RAW Académie Fellows, April 27, 6pm

Visiting faculty:
Gudskul, Arthur Jafa, Louis Massiah, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Bryant Wells, and Sarah Workneh

RAW fellows:
Rehema Chachage, Ibahim Cissé, Ana Milena Garzón, Dale John Lawrence, Baptiste Manet, Moad Musbahi, Matthais Domingo Mushinski, Dani Kyengo O’Neill, Aziz Sohail, Sanaz Sohrabi, and Chantel Vorobei Thieves

The institutional collaboration with RAW grew out of the ICA initiative I is for Institute (2016–present), which examines the perceptions and parameters of contemporary arts organizations as a way to create a space for dialogue about how we might reimagine them. To date the project has unfolded through a series of exhibition exchanges, a podcast, and over 50 conversations with curators and directors reflecting on their work within their specific institutional and local contexts. The conversations are archived online at iisforinstitute.icaphila.org.

RAW Académie at ICA: Infrastructure, directed by Linda Goode Bryant is co-organized by Alex Klein, Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber (CHE’60) Curator, ICA; Koyo Kouoh, former Artistic Director, RAW Material Company, currently Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA; Marie Hélène Pereira, Director of Programs, RAW; and Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Curator of Programs, RAW, with assistance from Marielle Ingram.

ICA gratefully acknowledges support from the Katherine (CW’69) and Keith L. Sachs (W’67) Guest Curator Program.

RAW Académie at ICA: Infrastructure is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Exhibition and programming support is provided by the Sachs Contemporary Art Fund, Toby Devan Lewis, and the Dolflnger-McMahon Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Linda & Jeffrey Chodorow, Stacey & Benjamin Frost, Marjorie & Michael Levine, Christina Weiss Lurie, B.Z. & Michael Schwartz, Lori & John Reinsberg, Dorothy & Stephen Weber, and Susan J. Weiler.