Register here [1].
Join us for a series of artist talks that focus on the intersections between art and activism. Additional material available for educators.
About this event
ViVA is pleased to partner with St. Vincent College’s dual museums – the Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery and Verostko Center for the Arts — to announce their upcoming joint fall series of virtual visiting artist talks and conversations. Scheduled for four Thursday evenings throughout the semester, each talk will take place over Zoom at 7:00 PM Eastern.
All four artists and collectives are united by their focus on interrelated themes that motivate their artistic work and creative practices, teaching, and community activism, including anti-racism, Black Lives Matter and racial inequality; the history of slavery; resilience, wellness and mental health; and power and privilege, as they intersect with climate change and environmental justice. The schedule is as follows:
Rania Lee Khalil: Thursday, October 21, 7:00 PM Eastern
Rania Lee Khalil makes live performances and moving-images that reflect on the beauty and disappearance of indigenous plant, animal and human cultures, ecology, third world feminism, post coloniality and healing. Originally trained in dance, somatic movement, and Butoh—in her videos she explores lo-fi and analog systems of making. She has received many prestigious awards and her work has been featured at The Judson Church, La Mama Galleria, Martin Segal Theater, Utopia Station, and The Ontological-Hysteric Theater (New York); the 56th Venice Biennale, and venues in Japan, Palestine, Egypt, and Finland. She recently completed a practice-based doctorate at the University of Arts Helsinki, and teaches at Parsons, The New School. She completed her BA at Hampshire College and two MA degrees: the first at Hunter College (social work and community organizing; New York) with postgraduate training in the Diversity program at Ackerman Institute for the Family; and second in International Performance as Research from the University of Warwick (England).The daughter of Egyptian immigrants to the U.S., Khalil lived and worked in Cairo, Egypt (2007-2016).
Rania Lee Khalil
Artist’s website: https://ranialeekhalil.net/ [2]
HIGHLIGHTS
Rania’s moving image performance the Third World Ecology trilogy departs from the work of her grandmother, a women’s rights organizer in Egypt in the 1960s, linking histories of third world independence movements with environmental consciousness. This performance is designed for community gardens and non-traditional art/ performance spaces, and premiered in the US at MATATU, a black performance think tank based in Oakland, CA
Her work centers BIPOC community arts practice and anti-colonial ecology, for instance, asserting the important link between fossil fuel consumption and imperial war as a 2020 “Moving Towards Justice Fellow” at Gibney Dance, through an environmental justice course she designed for Arab and Muslim female youth in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Khalil’s frequent use of analog video and found-footage, sourced and salvaged images, asks the viewer to think materially about the political and poetic potential of recycling and conservation. An example can be seen in her recently published video-essay, “Sinai: Tourism, Colonialism, and Sea,” in the Journal of Embodied Research
THEMES
Anthropocene & Posthumanism; Anti-Racism, Black Lives Matter & Racial Inequality; Climate Change; Empathy; Environmental Justice & Ecological Systems; Equality & Equity; Feminism; Multispecies Ethos & Animal/Nature Rights; Post-/Anti-Colonialism & Decolonization; Resilience, Wellness & Mental Health; SWANA & Palestinian Rights and Identities
Attention Educators (or interested parties), please contact lauren.churilla@stvincent.edu [4] for access to supplementary readings, videos, discussion prompts and classroom material.