Art, Ancestors, Ghosts, & the Dead

Together with: Korakrit Arunanondchai, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Shaun Leonardo, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Pınar Öğrenci, Laura Raicovich, Shahzia Sikander, Mari Spirito, Laura Rivera-Ayala, Silvia Benedetti, Eva Mayhabal Davis

2:00–3:30pm: Panel: Transformations, Mysteries, Renewals
Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Shahzia Sikander moderated by Laura Raicovich
On the cycle of life and the inherent transformations, mysteries, and renewals embedded in the participants’ art and lives.

4:00–5:30pm: Panel: Do It Yourself Or Ancient Mourning?
Korakrit Arunanondchai and Sofía Gallisá Muriente, moderated by Mari Spirito
On changing forms of mourning, merging traditional, religious, indigenous, and secular approaches.

6:00pm: Film Screening: Aşit (2022) by Pınar Öğrenci
On tension between the intimate loss of a loved one and that of mass death, in this case, of genocide.

7:30pm: Performance: Rehearsal (2023) Shaun Leonardo
On wordless gesture, a process of physical embodiment of grief, optional participatory.

Followed by reception.

Protocinema presents Art, Ancestors, Ghosts, & the Dead, a one-day convening on attitudes towards death across cultures, in partnership with ICI (Independent Curators International) at The Clemente Center, New York on Saturday, June 3, 2023. This gathering comes at a time of great loss amid ongoing wars, viruses, and inhumane border policies, and consists of two panel discussions, a film screening, performance, and a reception. Afternoon speakers include: Korakrit Arunanondchai, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Shahzia Sikander, Laura Raicovich, and Mari Spirito. Conversations will be followed by responses by Laura Rivera-Ayala and Silvia Benedetti.  Evening brings a participatory signature performance by Shaun Leonardo, film screening of Aşit by Pınar Öğrenci, and a reception. Art, Ancestors, Ghosts, & the Dead engages perspectives from Puerto Rico, Southeast and South Asia, the United States, and the Middle East on personal and collective behavior in response to death and the unspoken yet undeniable pain of loss.

Panel: Transformations, Mysteries, Renewals: Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Shahzia Sikander moderated by Laura Raicovich. This discussion will address the cycle of life and the inherent transformations, mysteries, and renewals embedded in the participants’ art and lives. Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s work as a writer, artist, and educator contends with memory, storytelling, and technologies through the lens of Black knowledge production and her Muslim faith. She is particularly concerned with the leakiness of narratives, the incompleteness of storytelling, and the ways that illegibility creates alternate access points and possibilities. Rasheed will discuss the relationship of her work to transformation and unmaking, the ways in which ancestors inform her contemplations and belief systems in constructing realities beyond what is knowable. Shahzia Sikander is a Pakistani-born artist and MacArthur fellow whose work in drawing, painting, film, and sculpture interweaves contemporary concerns with a visual language informed by premodern Central and South Asian painting traditions. Sikander will discuss a particular, sometimes-headless female figure, a duende-esque presence that has appeared in her works from the early 1990s to the present, including the large-scale sculptures of hers currently installed in Madison Square Park and the roof of the Appellate Courthouse. She will discuss the meanings of this form, with entwined and knotted arms and legs, which range from resistance and erasure to assimilation, timelessness, dislocation, and loss.

Panel: Do It Yourself Or Ancient Mourning? Korakrit Arunanondchai and Sofía Gallisá Muriente, moderated by Mari Spirito. This panel will discuss changing forms of mourning, merging traditional, religious, indigenous, and secular approaches. Sofía Gallisá Muriente, will show sections of Presente Presente Presente (2017), a video exploring how Puerto Rico’s “trend in mortuary services during a time of rampant crime and economic crisis generates new ways of mourning through shared spectacle and the production of images.” The common coping mechanism of refusing to acknowledge the impact of death on ourselves and others and the preoccupation with youth and vitality maintain social order and stability, minimizing the disruptive effects of death and loss. Such a culture of death denial can lead to a lack of support for those who are grieving or facing the end of life, and contribute to a sense of isolation and disconnection from natural life cycles. Thai-American artist Korakrit Arunanondchai’s work often deals with themes of identity, consumerism, and mortality, often through the use of Buddhist philosophy and imagery and of personal narrative and autobiography. By juxtaposing these seemingly disparate elements, Arunanondchai explores the tension between spiritual enlightenment and material desire and is concerned with the ways consumerism distracts us from deeper existential questions around life and death. 

Film screening: Aşit (2022) by Pınar Öğrenci faces the tension between the intimate loss of a loved one and that of mass death, in this case, of genocide. Öğrenci returns to her father’s hometown, Müküs,a mountainous village in southern Van, Turkey. It was once home to Armenian communities and today its population consists mainly of Kurdish-speaking people. Aşît is inspired by Stefan Zweig’s final novella The Royal Game (Schachnovelle, 1941), a psychological thriller in which chess becomes a survival mechanism in the face of fascism. Meaning “avalanche” and “disaster” in Kurdish, ‘Aşît’ refers both to the threat of an avalanche that disconnects Müküs from the rest of the world and to “Meds Yeghern” (The Big Disaster) in 1915. Öğrenci looks to Hayrik Muradian, an Armenian musician who had to escape Van in 1918, to hear the impressive landscape of Müküs. She traces the everyday survival strategies and cultural practices of Müküs people under the pressure of state and religion using the songs Muradian collected from his homeland, laying bare the necropolitics of a nation-state. 

The Protocinema Emerging Curator Series section of Art, Ancestors, Ghosts, & the Dead invites young curators of The Clemente’s 2023 programs and the ICI community to participate as Responders to conversations. With their unique perspectives and insights, Laura Rivera-Ayala, Silvia Benedetti and Eva Mayhabal Davis will expand the conversations with researched questions leading to a deeper understanding of the topics.

Participant bios here.

About Protocinema.
About ICI.
About The Clemente.

Protocinema is supported by the Emily Tremaine Innovation Grant, Independent Curators International and Marks Family Foundation.

Board of Trustees: Defne Ayas, Dillon Cohen, David Howe, Jane Lombard, Ari Meşulam, Jason Heard, and Sheldon La Pierre, Ayşe Umur. International Commissioning Committee: Haro Cümbüşyan and Bilge Öğüt, Adnan Yerebakan, SAHA Association, Istanbul.

Protodispatch is supported by Annette Blum, Gabe Catone, Jane Hait, Justin Beal, Jane Lombard, Helen and Peter Warwick. 

This program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council.

Produced by Protocinema.

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