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Cornell AAP is pleased to welcome prominent artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir as the art department’s spring 2022 Teiger Mentor in the Arts. Kicking off with an artist talk on March 7 titled Not So Long As The Night, Jacir will share insights into her work and approach to practice and bring a deep investment in creating alternative spaces of “knowledge production” to her weekly seminar and visits to the MFA studios this semester.
Internationally recognized for her complex and compelling body of work, Jacir investigates translation, transformation, resistance, and movement. Her work has been widely exhibited, written about, and acclaimed. In addition to her practice, she has dedicated over two decades to creating alternative spaces of knowledge production internationally, an approach to art education she now brings to Cornell.
“I have always had a very bespoke methodology for teaching that is based primarily on the students themselves and where we are,” Jacir says. “I consider my teaching practice more of a collaboration with the participants/students through collective discussions, exchanges, and workshops we create together. I see my role rather as a facilitator—fostering situations and platforms in which each student plays an active role by sharing their own body of knowledge and research. I try to create spaces where people can ask the questions they need to ask and where learning is a shared endeavor. Ultimately, I am forever a student, which is why being at Cornell is so exciting.”
Jacir’s artwork spans a range of strategies including film, photography, sculpture, interventions, archiving, performance, video, writing, and sound. Her work has been shown in major international group exhibitions and collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; dOCUMENTA (13) (2012); the Venice Biennale of Art (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013), and more.
A billboard from her ex libris series has been displayed on the New York City High Line since 2014. The piece, which consists of an installation, book project, and billboards was made between 2010–12 for dOCUMENTA (13). It commemorates the approximately 30,000 books that were stolen by Israel in 1948 from Palestinian homes and institutions. Six thousand of these books are held at the Jewish National Library of Israel, categorized as “A.P.” (Abandoned Property). Recently exhibited at the 2020 Berlinale International Film Festival, Jacir’s documentary film letter to a friend brings together interlaced images, textures, movements, traces, and sounds from more than a century, recounting the history of a home and street in Bethlehem.
She is the recipient of a Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice Biennale of Art for her work Material for a Film. Other honors include a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2015), and a 2021 Art Matters Artist2Artist Fellowship.
“We are inspired to have Emily Jacir on campus every week to lead the graduate seminar, to make regular visits to the MFA studios, and to present an artist talk on March 7,” says art department chair Paul Ramírez Jonas. “The close mentorship aspect of this important appointment is the priority.”
The Teiger Mentor in the Arts is a semester-long faculty appointment in Cornell AAP’s Department of Art that is focused on expanding the fundamentals of creative practice with an emphasis on mentorship by prominent visiting artists for visual arts students. Jacir is the 18th Teiger Mentor.
