Watch Now! Alternate Assembly

Jan 26, 2021 – Feb 2, 2021
4–5:30 pm

ICI Online

Panelists | Katie A. Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Ryan N. Dennis, Chief Curator, and Artistic Director, Center for Art & Public Exchange, Mississippi Museum of Art, Regina Agu, Artist, Chicago, Cristina Molina, Artist and Associate Professor of New Media + Animation, Southeastern Louisiana University, Willie Wright, Assistant Professor of Geography, Rutgers University

On January 21, these five panelists met online to discuss several recent curatorial and artistic projects anchored in the Gulf Coast—home to some of the fastest disappearing landmasses in the world—this conversation considers how art can encourage new forms of environmental awareness, and invite new thinking about culture and community. How can art shed light on urgent local issues, while also looking beyond the region, nation, and country to show us the way that climate connects us all? How can art inspire us to think about the very idea of the environment differently, dissolving the boundaries between local and global, between center and periphery, to locate new sources of solidarity and strength?

Participants

Ryan N. Dennis

Ryan N. Dennis is the Senior Curator and Director of Public Initiatives at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH).

Willie Wright

Willie J. Wright is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. He studies the intersections of (anti)blackness and urban spatial change, particularly how black residents create and sustain a sense of place in working class communities.

Regina Agu

Regina Agu's practice is deeply rooted in the Gulf South.

Katie Pfohl

Katie Pfohl is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Cristina Molina

Cristina Molina is a visual artist who hails from the subtropics of Miami and currently lives and works in New Orleans—two precarious and vulnerable terrains that have majorly influenced her practice.

This program is co-presented with EXPO CHICAGO. EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art features leading international galleries alongside one of the highest quality platforms for contemporary art and culture. Hosted within historic Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, EXPO CHICAGO presents a diverse program, including /Dialogues (presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and Exchange by Northern Trust, an unrivaled talks program for both public and VIP audiences; IN/SITU, dynamic on-site installations highlighting large-scale sculpture, film, and site-specific work; and major public art initiatives, including IN/SITU Outside, public art installed throughout Chicago Park District locations, and OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project, a curated selection of international artists throughout the city’s digital billboard network. The EXPO CHICAGO program also features an unprecedented commitment to host curatorial initiatives during the exposition, including the Curatorial Forum in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI), and the Curatorial Exchange, which partners with foreign agencies and consulates to expand the exposition’s global reach. EXPO CHICAGO is the publisher of THE SEEN, Chicago’s only international journal of contemporary and modern art criticism, distributed throughout the United States and Europe.