Join the final Urgency of The Arts Assembly: I WANT YOU TO SPEAK TO ME URGENTLY with guest speakers: Cornelia Paker, Hoor Al Qasimi, Rashaad Newsome & Chen Ronghui.
Convened by Dr Shehnaz Sutherwalla
Each speaker, nominated and introduced by a current student from the School of Arts & Humanities at the RCA, will present an issue that is most pressing to them right now.
Presentations will be followed by Q&A.
The event will be held via Zoom Webinar. Register HERE
Speaker biographies:
Cornelia Parker (b. 1956, Cheshire) has been concerned with formalising forces beyond our control, containing the volatile and transforming it into something that is quiet and contemplative. She is fascinated with processes in the world that mimic cartoon ‘deaths’ – steamrollering, shooting full of holes, falling from cliffs and explosions. Through a combination of visual and verbal allusions, her work triggers cultural metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to witness the transformation of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary. Working with sculpture and installation, as well as embroidery, drawing, photography and film, Parker positions her subjects at the very moment of their transformation, suspended in time and completely still.
introduced by Sara Osman & Yae Rin Pyun
Hoor Al Qasimi is a resident and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, a curator who established the Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts, not only in Sharjah, UAE, but also in the region and around the world. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation in the arts, Al Qasimi has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation to include major international touring exhibitions; artist and curator residencies in visual art, film and music; commissions and production grants for emerging artists; publications and publication grants; performance and film festivals; architectural research and restoration; and a wide range of educational programming in Sharjah for all age groups.
Introduced by Mujtaba Asif
Rashaad Newsome’s work blends several practices, including collage, assemblage, sculpture, film, video, animation, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, community organizing, and performance, to create a divergent field that rejects classification. Using the diasporic traditions of improvisation, he pulls from the world of advertising, the internet, Art History, Black and Queer culture to produce counter-hegemonic work that walks the tightrope between social practice, abstraction, and intersectionality. Collage acts as a conceptual and technical method to construct a new cultural framework of power that does not find the oppression of others necessary. Newsome’s work celebrates Black contributions to the art canon and creates innovative and inclusive forms of culture and media.
Introduced by Alyse Stone
Chen Ronghui is a Chinese photographer currently based in Shanghai and New Haven. His work focuses on different dimensions of China’s urbanization and industrialization. He has published two photobooks, Freezing Land, and Land of Ambitions, and exhibited both in China and internationally. He has won a number of awards including the World Press Photo; BarTur Photo Award; Three Shadows Photography Award & AlPA special prize and Hou Dengke Documentary Photography.
Introduced by Xinlong Lin
