Episodes
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Poetic Interventions Point to Pollution in Kyrgyzstan
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Today, we introduce a few of the artists and activists energizing the 2023 Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival in Kyrgyzstan. They give voice to the issues, ideas, and intentions that shape their truly creative approaches to mitigate pollution. Their projects illuminate the potential for artists everywhere to build community and drive sustainable solutions to our global environmental crisis.
From the city of Bishkek to the settlement of Altyn Kazyk, we discover myriad ways that socially engaged artists encourage awareness and action. They bring us together from around the world to experience, understand, and create true moments of beauty and meaning—giving us hope for a future that holds clean air, land, and water.
Acknowledgement: In Fall 2023, Cathy Byrd recorded the voices in this episode during her residency with CEC ArtsLink in Central Asia.
Sound Design and Engineering: Anamnesis Audio
Featured Voices: Sto Len, Ronja Roemmelt, Mishiko Solakauri, Begimai Zhunusova, Ellen Harvey, Bermet Borubaeva, Aimeerim Tursalieva
Special Thanks to the Bishkek Sanitary Landfill—Director Nurlan Djumaliev, Head of Municipal Enterprise Section Arzykulov Almaz Toktomukhanmedovich, Landfill Museum Co-Curator Samat Marso
Special Audio: Live musicians performance at the People’s Landfill Museum and the Bandistan Ensemble
Related Episodes: Public Water—with Mary Mattingly, Topical Playlist—Sustainability and the Environment
Related Links: CEC ArtsLink, Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival 2023, Tazar, EU Compliant Landfill to Open in Bishkek
Tuesday Nov 05, 2019
CYJO on the Complexities of Photographing Identity
Tuesday Nov 05, 2019
Tuesday Nov 05, 2019
We shadow CYJO, a Miami-based Korean American visual artist, as she navigates the complex maze of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2018. Her goal is to discover and document exceptional work in the photographic medium for the “Art Basel Miami Week Diary” that she contributes to the bilingual online publication L’Œil de la Photographie (The Eye of Photography).
Inside the fair, Gian Paolo Paci, of Paci Contemporary, in Bresi, Italy, introduces us to his gallery’s featured artist: American photographer Nancy Burson. Burson created some of the earliest photographic portraits using computer-morphing technology.
Jared Quintan, Associate Director of Rhona Hoffman, in Chicago, deconstructs the symbolism in a photographic wall installation by Lorna Simpson, an African-American photographer and multimedia artist known for her singular approach to portraiture. Quintan also talks about intimate portraits by African American artist Deana Lawson, whose photographs reveal the body’s ability to channel personal and social histories.
A few weeks later, we meet CYJO in her studio, a light-filled loft that looks out over Biscayne Bay in Miami. We’re here to learn more about how the artist explores the complexities of identity, beauty and belonging through her own photography, video and text.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related Episodes: Modern Portrait of Black Florida, Jillian Mayer on the Nude Selfie Project, Adam Schreiber on the Spatial Dynamics of Photography
Related Links: CYJO, Art Basel Miami Beach, L’Œil de la Photographie, Paci Contemporary, Rhona Hoffman Gallery
Thursday Jul 11, 2019
Ellen Harvey on Public Art and Climate Action
Thursday Jul 11, 2019
Thursday Jul 11, 2019
Today, we take you to Miami Beach, Florida, for a conversation with British-born artist Ellen Harvey.
In 2002, the art fair known as Art Basel traveled here from Switzerland, to set up a winter home. While the South Florida metropolis has grown into an international contemporary art mecca, this coast has also become recognized as ground zero for sea level rise.
Despite increased flooding from high tides, the population keeps growing. Public and private investments continue to pour in. In 2015, the City of Miami Beach allocated 620 million dollars to renovate and expand the Convention Center where the Art Basel fair takes place every December. Seven million dollars of the budget were dedicated to public art. Six new site works are adding star power to the City’s permanent collection.
Selected for one of the high profile commissions, Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Harvey seized the moment, to create what she describes as “a hopelessly romantic call to action.” We sit down with her to talk about the endangered eco-system that informs Atlantis, her shimmering glass wall installation.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related Episodes: Art and the Climate Crisis with IKT Miami, Curating and Creative Resilience with IKT in Miami, Whithervanes: The Art of Anxiety, Where Art Meets Activism, Art and the Rising Sea
Related Links: Ellen Harvey, Art in Public Places
Ellen Harvey’s Atlantis joins other public art projects to be realized in and around the Convention Center. Accessible to visitors and locals, the full set will include a vivid painted mural by Franz Ackermann (Berlin), a bent swimming pool sculpture by Elmgreen & Dragset (Berlin), a neon global positioning installation by Joseph Kosuth (London/New York), whimsical park seating by Joep van Lieshout (Rotterdam), and an expansive patterned tile wall by Sarah Morris (New York).
Cathy Byrd, Fresh Art International Founder and Artistic Director, participated in the review and selection process from 2015-2016 as a member of the City of Miami Art in Public Places Committee.
Monday May 13, 2019
Art Historian Playlist: Deborah Barkun Listens to Joana Choumali
Monday May 13, 2019
Monday May 13, 2019
Today’s conversation continues our Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, writers, filmmakers, cultural producers and other listeners to introduce episodes from our archive.
Based in the United States, art historian and curator Deborah Barkun is Chair of the Department of Art and Art History and Director of Museum Studies at Ursinus College, outside Philadelphia. Her research centers on the social dynamics of artistic collaboration. Barkun is contributing to our stories from the 58th Venice Art Biennale. Here, she introduces our conversation with Ivorian artist Joana Choumali, first released on April 30, 2018.
Deborah Barkun writes: I am excited to introduce this reprise of “Joana Choumali Embroiders Empathy.” I feel especially connected to this episode, as I was present for Cathy’s first interview with Choumali in the Ivory Coast Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Choumali spoke poignantly about African emigration and the emptiness it leaves in the hearts of loved ones left behind. Her hand-embroidered and collaged photographic diptychs depict this global migration. Loose threads left dangling from the works speak to a sense of ongoing longing.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Photography: Deborah Barkun
Related Episodes: Joana Choumali Embroiders Empathy, Sounds of the 57th Venice Art Biennale, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Colonial Gaze, Monument to Decay: Israeli Pavilion in Venice, Mark Bradford Connects Art with the Real World
Related Links: Joana Choumali, Ivory Coast Pavilion, Venice Art Biennale, Dak’Art 2018
Monday Jan 07, 2019
Rodrigue Mouchez on Choreographing Art Encounters
Monday Jan 07, 2019
Monday Jan 07, 2019
Rodrigue Mouchez, founder of the artist-run curatorial platform known as AGUAS, talks about choreographing encounters with art. Mouchez introduces People Moving Through Space, an array of installations he created and staged with AGUAS collaborator Julie Escoffier and other artists for the seventh edition of Untitled, Miami Beach art fair.
Based in Mexico City and Brussels, AGUAS seeks to establish dialogues and collaborations between artists from Europe and Latin America through exhibitions, talks, and publications. AGUAS operates on the idea of interdisciplinarity. Each project invites the collective engagement of artists, designers, writers and friends.
Related episodes: Miami Art Week 2018 Preview, Report from Miami Art Week 2017
Related links: AGUAS, Rodrigue Mouchez, Julie Escoffier, Untitled Art
Monday Jul 16, 2018
Monument to Decay: Israeli Pavilion in Venice
Monday Jul 16, 2018
Monday Jul 16, 2018
At the 57th Venice Art Biennale, Miami-based curator Tami Katz-Freiman guides us through the multi-media installation that artist Gal Weinstein created for the Israeli Pavilion. The artist used glue, mold, metal, and felt to transform the shining white cube into a monument to decay.
As you listen the conversation we recorded in 2017, keep in mind the mounting tensions in the Middle East today. Consider the larger question of how nations choose to represent themselves in the context of a high profile international art biennial. Weinstein's project reveals the enduring power of art to serve as portent and marker of change.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Images: Courtesy Israeli Pavilion and Fresh Art International
Related episodes: Sounds of the Venice Art Biennale 2017, Lisa Reihanna on Reversing the Colonial Gaze, Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief
Related links: Israeli Pavilion at the 57th Venice Art Biennale, Gal Weinstein, Tami Katz-Freiman
Monday May 07, 2018
Miami's Caribbean Arts Remix-Jolt Radio-2May2018
Monday May 07, 2018
Monday May 07, 2018
Friday Feb 09, 2018
Prospect 4 New Orleans—The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp
Friday Feb 09, 2018
Friday Feb 09, 2018
Come with us to explore Prospect New Orleans, the Crescent City’s triennial of contemporary art. Titled The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, the fourth iteration evokes the musical character of New Orleans and the surrounding natural environment—the bayous, lakes and wetlands near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Voices in this episode: Prospect.4’s artistic director Trevor Schoonmaker, former executive director Brooke Davis Anderson, artists Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Paulo Nazareth, Sonia Boyce, Rusty Lazer, Darryl Montana, Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters, and more!
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Studio Drift on Nature and Technology
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Today we take you to the intersection of nature, art and technology to meet Amsterdam-based artists Ralph Nauta and Lonneka Gordjein of Studio Drift. They design their creative applications of new technology to make us question the lines we draw between humanity and nature, chaos and order. Presented during Miami Art Week 2017, Studio Drift's flying sculpture made of 300 lighted drones was especially provocative and poetic. The artists leave us believing in the unexpected potential for technology to feel natural.
Piano solo: Joep Beving
Thursday Jan 05, 2017
Zoë Buckman on Fight Mode
Thursday Jan 05, 2017
Thursday Jan 05, 2017
Artist Zoë Buckman is in fight mode. Her own boxing gloves figure in recent mixed media installations, spoken word, and sound art projects that defend women's reproductive rights. This episode is an excerpt from the 3 Dec 2016 Fresh Art International show on Untitled, Radio, Miami Beach.
Sound Editor: Guney Ozsan | Swami Ji spoken word performance audio courtesy Zoë Buckman