Artists

Alexandra Cuesta Named John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow

Alexandra Cuesta, a filmmaker and recent guest of the Global Mobility Project at The Ohio State University, has been named a Guggenheim Fellow. Alexandra’s work combines experimental film and documentary practices to capture how people move through public spaces. Her work examines social structures, instances of displacement, and cultural diasporas. As a Guggenheim Fellow, she will continue to work on a project titled Desde Aquí (From Here). According to the Guggenheim website the project is:

…an experimental documentary that explores the life of the inhabitants of Susudel, a small community in the Andes mountains in southern Ecuador. The film addresses the complicated post-colonial legacy of land ownership, labor, and migrations, particular to the region, while simultaneously constructing a portrait of place, which permeates between the exterior landscape and the private/ intimate scape.

The New York Film Festival, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Viennale International Film Festival, Centre Pompidou, Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, FIDMarseille, Bienal de Cuenca, Habana Film Festival, and BFI Film Festival, London number among venues at which Alexandra’s work has been screened. Alexandra received her MFA in Film and Video from the California Institute of the Arts and her BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design.

On February 12, Alexandra visited OSU to show three short films and to join Prof. Vera Brunner-Sung of the Global Mobility Project and the Department of Theatre for a discussion on their subject matter. The three films screened were Despedida, Piensa En Mi, Recordando El Ayer. These films depict movement, moments of waiting, separation and life in two distinct places: Los Angeles (Despedida and Piensa En Mi) and Jackson Heights in New York City (Recordando El Ayer). After showing her short films, Alexandra reflected on making films in marginalized spaces populated mainly by migrants.

Alexandra and Prof. Brunner-Sung discuss the filmmaking process, global mobility and migration, and the significance of Alexandra’s work in the podcast below. Alexandra explains how art can avoid the pitfall of existing outside the migrant experience, a notion she has observed in some academic research. Alexandra says, “What the arts can do in this regard is to look at this subject from another perspective and that means to me a more emotional perspective.”

She then recalls a showing of her film Recordando El Ayer at a church in Jackson Heights, where many of the film’s subjects were able to watch the film and subsequently participate in a Q & A session. Through this rare opportunity she was able to see firsthand how, “Art, again, can provide these open conversations, dialogues, and discussions in a more human and direct way.”

Speaking from her perspective as a filmmaker and as immigrant originally from Ecuador, Alexandra creates films that convey the feeling of leaving home and assimilating into a new culture. Central to her work are identities and a sense of belonging. She wonders, “Can anyone belong to a place? Is this even possible in the world today?”

A Talk with Alexandra Cuesta Podcast:

Movable Memories

By Randall Rowe, PhD Student, Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Cultures

 On Monday, March 19th the Global Mobility Project hosted two exciting events with South Korean artist Do-Ho Suh. There was a great turnout for his talk at the Knowlton School of Architecture, where he elaborated on his creative process. His work questions the concept of home and how a person transports home across time and space. Do-Ho has created fabric homes by measuring the dimensions of his former living spaces and then sewing together representations of these spaces. He has also engaged with his former homes in other ways. For example, he has used a technique called rubbing to create traced representations of these spaces. He wraps the subjects of his installments (his former homes) in white paper and carefully rubs the surfaces with a pencil to reveal the intricate designs and details of the living spaces. This very delicate and physical practice (measuring, sewing, rubbing, etc.) reinforces Do-Ho’s deep connection to the spaces. Consequently his memory of home becomes a portable manifestation of an abstract concept that may be carried with him in a suitcase everywhere he goes.

Do-Ho talked about how his fabric structures are developed from the memories of his former dwellings. They change meaning as they grow to include the various places he encounters in his work and life, he says. His presentation started with his original installation, Seoul Home, which debuted in Los Angeles at the L.A. Korean Culture Center (1991). His installation grew to incorporate his other former homes and began to move from exhibit space to exhibit space. Reflecting the transient nature of his work and the migration experience, Do-Ho’s Seoul Home became Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home… (1999).

Later in the day, we hosted a screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts of Fallen Star: Finding Home (2016), a film that was directed by our very own Prof. Vera Brunner-Sung and Valerie Stadler. This film documents the Fallen Star art installation (2012), which was a collaboration led by Do-Ho Suh at the Stuart Collection of the University California, San Diego. Fallen Star was an ambitious project that culminated in placing a small house, inspired by a cottage on the East coast of the U.S., on the 7th floor roof of a building in Southern California. Again, Do-Ho engages with the idea of home, but this time on a college campus where many arrive from other cities, states and countries. After the film, the audience was treated to a rare opportunity to ask questions of both the creator of the project and one of the directors of the films.

In our Q & A session, both Do-Ho and Prof. Brunner-Sung stressed the collaborative nature of their work. Fallen Star was made possible by the expertise of many people in a variety of fields. Do-Ho Suh envisioned the project, but conceded that he, alone was unable to execute such a large scale work. The Stuart Collection, together with local engineers and contractors constructed and raised the house, and the process was documented by Brunner-Sung and Stadler. The film not only shows the process of erecting the project, but also captures the process of change within those who helped carry out the project. A project of this scale was dismissed as too frivolous or nonsensical by skeptical observers, but the team stood by the mission. During a poignant moment in the film, the superintendent of the job, Don Franken, concludes that perhaps art can be difficult to understand because it is experienced by every person in a different way. This captures the transformative nature of Fallen Star and Do-Ho’s work in general. Those who view his art are invited to question otherwise stable and personal concepts such as home or belonging. Do-Ho’s work is particularly powerful, because it delicately reminds the viewer that one’s home is not always constant. In fact, it is often ever-changing, and every person uniquely relates to an idea of home.

Thank you to Do-Ho Suh for visiting us at The Ohio State University, and thank you to all who helped make both events happen. Thank you especially to our co-sponsors: Office of International Affairs, Asian American Studies, Ohio State University, OSU Department of Art, Knowlton School of Architecture, and the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering!

Musician Visit with Ezé Wendtoin

Ezé Wendtoin, a prominent West African musician will visit OSU Campus March 19-27. He has dedicated his work as a musician to increase understanding of different cultures in Germany. As a solo artist and together with the Dresden musician collective “Banda Internationale” he has stood against racism and xenophobia through music in concerts, theater, social projects, and in his work as an educator and scholar of German Second Language Acquisition. At the Ohio State, he will offer concerts, conversations and lectures to engage with our local students, artists and community.

Find below the events open to the public which we encourage you to attend.

March 19:

12am: Public Lunch with graduate students, Research Commons 352, 18th Ave Library

1-2pm: Pop-Up Performances on the Oval

4-5.30pm: Lecture “Music in Foreign Language Education: Learning German through Music in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso“, Arps 388, RSVP HERE

March 20:

12.45am-2.10 pm: “Studying Abroad: Sharing Experiences”, CLLC Lunch Discussion with music with Foreign Language Students students, Hagerty Hall courtyard/ Crane Café, lunch snacks will be provided, RSVP HERE

2.30-4.30pm: “Bringing Different Worlds Together Through Music”, student workshops in German and French, SIGN UP HERE

5-6.30pm: “Being African in Trump’s America“, Roundtable Discussion and Concert, Frank Hale Cultural Center, 153 W 12th Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43210

March 21:

2-3.30pm: Lunch with graduate students, Jennings Hall 050

4-5pm: Pop-Up Performances on the Oval

March 22:

3-3.30pm: Pop-Up Performances on the Oval

3.30-5pm: Musical Discussion with the Migration Studies Working Group, Research Commons, 350A, 18th Ave Library, RSVP by emailing migrationstudiesworkinggroup@gmail.com

March 27:

6pm: “Ezé Wendtoin” Collaborative Concert at the Global Gallery Café in Clintonville

More information can be found on www.u.osu.edu/ezewendtoin OR www.go.osu.edu/eze

More information about Student Workshops in German and French:

Bringing Different Worlds Together Through Music

In this workshop, Ezé uses music invites students of German and French to develop ways to think about and bring together different understandings of culture and living. He will incorporate your perspectives to encourage a learning environment in which you are able to learn with and from each other.

Ezé will talk about his work with different non-profit organizations and collectives (Atticus e.V., Lauter Leise in Sachsen, Banda Internationale). He will also present his visits to local schools in Germany, during which he talked with students about issues of racism, prejudice, and clichés, telling the students about how he has made his way to Germany, and what role music played for his journey. He will talk about Burkina Faso by presenting different photographic materials.

The workshop is open to students of German and French.

Workshop 1 (French): 3/20, 2.45-3.30pm

Workshop 2 (German): 3/20, 3.40- 4.25pm

SIGN UP HERE

There is no minimum proficiency level required. Students of different proficiency-levels are encouraged to participate. Each workshop holds 20 students.

Event Page

Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (GLL), the Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (CLLC), the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS), the Migration Studies Working Group, the Department of Music and the Global Mobility Project.

Upcoming Artist Talk and Roundtable Discussion (RSVP by Feb. 9th) with Photographer Susan Meiselas

OSU EVENT
Tuesday, February 13, 2018, 7:00pm
“Artist Talk with Photographer Susan Meiselas”
Location: Wexner Center for the Arts
OSU EVENT
Wednesday, February 14, 2018, 10:15am-12:00pm
“Roundtable Discussion with Photographer Susan Meiselas”
Location: Thompson Library Room 165
RSVP by February 6 to globalmobility@osu.edu
Event Page
OSU EVENT
Co-sponsors: Department of Art Living Culture Initiative and Visiting Artist Program, the Global Mobility Project and the Migration Studies Working Group.

OSU Event

Susan Meiselas, born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1948, received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA in visual education from Harvard University. Her first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs, whom she photographed during three consecutive summers while teaching photography in New York public schools. Carnival Strippers was originally published in 1976 and a selection was installed at the Whitney Museum of Art in June 2000.

Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. She published her second monograph, Nicaragua, in 1981. Meiselas served as an editor and contributor to the book El Salvador: The Work of Thirty Photographers and edited Chile from Within featuring work by photographers living under the Pinochet regime. She has co-directed two films, Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family and Pictures from a Revolution with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti. In 1997, she completed a six-year project curating a hundred-year photographic history of Kurdistan, integrating her own work into the book Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History and developed akaKurdistan, an online site of exchange for collective memory in 1998.

Her monograph Pandora’s Box  explores a New York S & M club, has been exhibited both at home and abroad. Encounters with the Dani reveals a sixty-year history of outsiders’ discovery and interactions with the Dani, an indigenous people of the highlands of Papua in Indonesia.

Meiselas has had one-woman exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and her work is included in collections around the world. She has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for her work in Nicaragua (1979); the Leica Award for Excellence (1982); the Engelhard Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art (1985); the Hasselblad Foundation Photography prize (1994); the Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2005) and most recently was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal (2011). In 1992, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

OSU Event

Dorthea Lange: Documenting Migration

Dorthea Lange was an American documentary photographer who is best known for her Depression-era photography in which she humanized the impacts of the Great Depression.

Some of her most striking photography visualize rural poverty and the exploitation of migrant laborers.  These images, from the NYPL digital archives, document the movement of cotton hoers traveling from Memphis to work the at plantations in Alabama.

 

The last truckload of cotton hoers from Memphis bound for the Wilson Cotton Plantation in Arkansas, 43 miles distant, June 1937.
Date: 1937
Photographer: Dorothea Lange

 

Women being transported from Memphis, Tennessee to an Arkansas plantation, July 1937.
Date: 1937
Photographer: Dorothea Lange

 

These cotton hoers work from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for $1.00 near Clarksdale, Mississippi, June-July 1937.
Date: 1937
Photographer: Dorothea Lange

 

Cotton hoers loading at Memphis for the day’s work in Arkansas; June, 1937.
Date: 1937
Photographer: Dorothea Lange

Anish Kapoor Wins Genesis Prize, Gives $1m to Help Refugees

The artist is currently featured, together with others, at the Pizzuti Collection, one of our community partners!

British artist Sir Anish Kapoor is donating his $1 million award for being named the 2017 Genesis Prize Laureate to help alleviate the Syrian refugee crisis and expand the engagement of the Jewish Community in the global effort to support refugees. His pledge continues the tradition of Genesis Prize Laureates directing the $1 million award to meaningful causes.

Known as the “Jewish Nobel,” the annual Genesis Prize was established in 2012 to recognize individuals who have “attained excellence and international renown in their chosen professional fields, and who inspire others through their engagement and dedication to the Jewish community and the State of Israel.”

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