Writer/curator Cathy Byrd sparks conversations about today’s art, design, and film on the Fresh Art International podcast. Synthesizing interviews and field recordings with critical commentary since 2011, the podcast archives the voices, sounds, and stories of contemporary culture makers from around the world.
Episodes
Monday Jun 17, 2019
Monday Jun 17, 2019
What does "creative resilience" mean for curators in the year 2019?
One evening, we decide to find out. Setting up a temporary recording studio in a poolside cabana, at a Miami Beach hotel, we sit down with a dozen curators and cultural producers to document their stories. In this marathon recording session, you’ll hear curatorial strategies for engaging new communities, increasing the visibility of underrepresented artists, and addressing some of today's most pressing social, political and environmental challenges.
We recorded this special program when the annual Congress of the Association of International Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) took place in the United States for the first time. Curators from the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean gathered in Miami, Florida, to explore the contemporary art scene and participate in a symposium about art and resilience in the climate crisis.
Voices in the episode: (alpha order) Eva Asp, Bayardo Blandino, Aldeide Delgado, Yucef Merhi, Thale Fastvold and Tanja Torjussen, Michele Fiedler, O'Neil Lawrence, Lorie Mertes, Najja Moon, Marina Reyes Franco, Sofía Shaula Reeser-del Rio
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: (in order of appearance) Spectres in Change: FoAM / Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney; The Quilt Performing Arts Group for Beyond Fashion exhibition, National Gallery of Jamaica; Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas (Hacked!) 2000-2004; The BLCK Family Dinner
Related Episodes: Art and the Climate Crisis with IKT Miami, Art and the Rising Sea, Curating in a Time of Global Change: IKT Norway, Sounds of Contemporary Art in Norway with IKT
Related Links: International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, FoAM Spectres in Change, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas (Hacked!) 2000-2004, National Gallery of Jamaica, Resisting Paradise, Locust Projects, The BLCK Family, Gävle Konstcentrum, International Cities of Refuge Network, SALA MAC / Contemporary Visual Arts Center of Women in the Arts in Honduras, Women Photographers International Archive, Locus Art
Monday Apr 22, 2019
Monday Apr 22, 2019
Today, we take you to meet the creative hive that's transforming the cultural landscape of Tampa, Florida. While the coastal city may still be best known for its cigar-making history and vulnerability to rising sea levels, we discover an animated art scene. This is where new and established studios, public art projects, dynamic DIY galleries, avant-garde festivals, and networked community hubs are inventing fresh opportunities for public engagement with contemporary art.
Voices (alpha order): Janina Awai, Wendy Babcox, Neal Bender, Carrie Boucher, Devon Brady, Warren Cockerham, Liz Dimmit, Bridget and Henry Elmer, Rebecca Flanders, Mitzi Gordon, Sarah Howard, Noelle Mason, Tracy Midulla, Margaret Miller, Libbi Ponce, Jenn Ryan Miller, Gary Schmitt, Bosco Sodi, Jake Troyli, Christian Viveros-Fauné
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio Courtesy of Wendy Babcox, Meghan Lock and Noisy Womxn; Kalup Linzy and FMoPA; JaTovia Gary, Kristin Reeves and FLEX FEST; Devon Brady and The Echo Quilt
Tempus Projects supported, in part, this episode.
Related Episodes: Live from the Everglades, Part One and Part Two, Art and the Rising Sea, Modern Portrait of Black Florida
Related Links: Tempus Projects, The Echo Quilt, University of South Florida Institute for Research in Art, Bosco Sodi, Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Parallelogram Gallery, Quaid Gallery, Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival, St. Pete Women's Collective, SPACEcraft
About Tempus Projects: Tempus Projects is an alternative space situated in a storefront on Florida Avenue in the South Seminole Heights district of Tampa, Florida. A nonprofit organization operates the space as a way to nurture established and emerging local, national and international artists working in all media. Tempus originates, organizes and hosts exhibitions, events and special projects, to engage the Tampa Bay community through the visual arts. This home-grown cultural initiative has energized the district’s emergence as a unique and creative destination.
Monday Apr 15, 2019
Monday Apr 15, 2019
Globally engaged curators introduce IKT, the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and talk about themes we'll explore during the 2019 IKT Congress in Miami. Ground zero for sea level rise, Miami is the ideal context for our conversation on how art and visual culture are changing public perception of today's climate crisis.
Recorded in the studio of Jolt Radio, Miami, on April 10, 2019, during our weekly web streaming radio show.
Voices: (alpha order) Daniela Arriado, Susan Caraballo, T.J. Demos, Julia Draganović, Vanina Saracino
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Cara Despain, Sea Unseen; Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, Forest Law; Oliver Ressler, Code Rood; Enrique Rámirez, Tidal Pulse; Band of Weeds, Underground Root Movement |
This episode is supported, in part, by IKT Miami.
Related Episodes: Live from the Everglades, Part One, Robert Chambers on Art, Ancient Plants and New Technologies, Gustavo Matamoros: Inside Miami’s Sound Chamber, Deborah Mitchell: The Artist as Guide to the Everglades, Jenny Larsson on Searching for Arctic Winter, Adam Nadel on Getting the Water Right, Artist Residency in Everglades, Art and the Rising Sea, Jorge Menna Barreto on Environmental Sculpture, Rauschenberg Residency on Rising Water, Andrea Bowers on Environmental Activism
Related Links: IKT, Screen City Biennial
Episode Participants:
Daniela Arriado is Director and founder of Screen City Biennial in Stavanger, Norway. Based in Berlin since 2012, she explores new curatorial approaches towards expanded borders of cinematic experiences and the audio-visual through projects concerning urban screens and online streaming platforms for video art.
Susan Caraballo is a Miami-based arts consultant, producer and curator working at the intersection of curating and directing to explore global issues including the ecological crisis and contemporary social conditions. A member of IKT's Miami constituency, Caraballo organized the symposium for the 2019 Congress around the subject of environmental sustainability and creative resilience.
T.J. Demos is Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture, at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Founder and Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. He writes widely on the intersection of contemporary art, global politics and ecology.
Julia Draganović is a curator whose focus is time based and collaborative art and new artistic strategies. She has curated projects in Germany, Italy, Spain, the USA and Taiwan. Currently Director of Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany, Draganović has served as President of IKT since 2014.
Vanina Saracino is an independent curator and film programmer based in Berlin. She is the co-founder of OLHO, an international curatorial project about contemporary art and cinema initiated in 2015 in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, also shown at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi (Venice, 2017) and Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2018). Saracino is co-curating the 2019 Screen City Biennial.
About IKT: German curators Eberhard Roters, Eddy de Wilde and Harald Szeemann and others founded IKT in 1973, to stimulate and extend debate concerning curating. Convening each year in a different city, IKT brings together curators from around the world, to meet, share knowledge, exchange ideas and broaden their professional networks.
About IKT Miami: A group of twelve Miami-based curators organized a three-day program for IKT's 2019 Congress in Miami. More than 100 international curators and art professionals participated, along with local curators, cultural producers, artists and other members of Miami’s cultural community. IKT Miami brought international attention to area artists and cultural producers, including those addressing global issues of sustainability and resilience in South Florida. The symposium and five related community events introduced Miami’s rich cultural landscape.
Monday Apr 08, 2019
Monday Apr 08, 2019
This flashback to Norway 2017 features our sonic encounters and conversations with artists, curators and cultural producers in the capital city of Oslo and in Tromsø, a small town north of the Arctic Circle.
In 2017, Fresh Art International founder and artistic director Cathy Byrd traveled to Norway as a new member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT), an organization designed to support and connect curators in our global community. The Office for Contemporary Art, Norway, and Oslo Pilot (now known as osloBiennalen) guided our first experience of contemporary Nordic art and culture.
In 2019, when IKT convenes for the first time in the United States, Fresh Art International will stage three podcast events with IKT delegates and Miami-based curators and cultural producers. Diverse venues, partners, grantors and sponsors make possible the realization of IKT Miami and the Post-Congress that follows in Havana, Cuba.
Voices: (alpha order) Thale Fastvold and Tanja Thorjussen/LOCUS, Freek Lomme/Onomatopee, Charlotte Nilsen, Marita Isobel Solberg, Ánde Somby, Amund S. Sveen, Jana Winderen, Tori Wrånes, Jana Winderen
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Margrethe Pettersen, Jana Winderen, Tori Wrånes | Photography: Fresh Art International, featured artists and curators, IKT and OCA Norway
Related Episodes: Sounds of Contemporary Art in Norway, Curating in a Time of Global Change
Related Links: IKT, OCA Norway, osloBiennalen
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Monday Apr 01, 2019
South Florida’s subtropical wilderness inspired us to stage a remote radio broadcast from the Everglades. On February 24, 2019, we brought live and pre-recorded conversations with artists, scientists, rangers, educators and Miccosukee activists to a live audience on the porch of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center.
Voices in Part Two (alpha order): Warren Abrahamson, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, Robert Chambers, Houston Cypress, Jose Elias, Nathan Fox, Ellen Harvey, Jenny Hipscher, Lori Marois, Deborah Mitchell, Cristina Molina, Adam Nadel, Paula Nelson-Shokar, Sarah Michelle Rupert, Dara Silverman, Hilary Swain
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park
This episode is supported, in part, by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and Everglades National Park. Fresh Art International’s Cathy Byrd, AIRIE Fellow, February 2019, lived in the Park for one month as curator in residence.
Related Episodes: Live from the Everglades, Part One, Robert Chambers on Art, Ancient Plants and New Technologies, Gustavo Matamoros: Inside Miami’s Sound Chamber, Deborah Mitchell: The Artist as Guide to the Everglades, Jenny Larsson on Searching for Arctic Winter, Adam Nadel on Getting the Water Right, Artist Residency in Everglades, Art and the Rising Sea, Jorge Menna Barreto on Environmental Sculpture, Rauschenberg Residency on Rising Water, Andrea Bowers on Environmental Activism
Related Links: Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), Everglades National Park, Jolt Radio
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Monday Mar 18, 2019
South Florida's subtropical wilderness inspired us to stage a remote radio broadcast from the Everglades on February 24, 2019. We brought live and pre-recorded conversations with artists, scientists, rangers, educators and Miccosukee activists to a live audience on the porch of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center. This episode is Part One of our two-hour program.
Voices in Part One: AIRIE Creative Director Deborah Mitchell, Miccosukee activist Betty Osceola, Celeste DePalma of Audubon Florida, Park Rangers Daniel Agudelo, Nathan Fox, Leon Howell, Lori Marois and Emily Wong, Park volunteer Barbara Hedges, Park hydrologists Steven Tennis and Adam Thime, and AIRIE Fellows Grant Livingston, Gustavo Matamoros and Christina Pettersson.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park
This program is supported, in part, by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and Everglades National Park. Fresh Art International's Cathy Byrd, AIRIE Fellow, February 2019, lived in the Park for one month as curator in residence.
Related Episodes: Robert Chambers on Art, Ancient Plants and New Technologies, Gustavo Matamoros: Inside Miami's Sound Chamber, Deborah Mitchell: The Artist as Guide to the Everglades, Jenny Larsson on Searching for Arctic Winter, Adam Nadel on Getting the Water Right,Artist Residency in Everglades, Art and the Rising Sea, Jorge Menna Barreto on Environmental Sculpture, Rauschenberg Residency on Rising Water, Andrea Bowers on Environmental Activism
Related Links: Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), Everglades National Park, Jolt Radio
Monday Mar 04, 2019
Monday Mar 04, 2019
Miami-based sculptor Robert Chambers lived in Everglades National Park for one month in 2018, as a Fellow in the Artist in Residence in Everglades program.
In the darkness outside his studio one night, the artist tripped on the roots of an ancient plant: The Saw Palmetto (in Latin, Serenoa repens), That’s when a hidden world began opening up to him.
In fact, the small palms are everywhere you look, native to the subtropical wilderness. The leaves are woven into the thatched roofs of indigenous pavilions you’ll find in Big Cypress, a wetlands preserve north of the national park. In some parts of the world, saw palmetto berries are cherished for their healing properties.
We meet Robert Chambers to explore his exhibition titled Serepens at the AIRIE Nest, an art gallery inside the Visitor Center. AIRIE curator Deborah Mitchell and two environmental scientists who’ve inspired his new body of work are here, too. Botanist Walter Abrahamson has been researching the saw palmetto for forty years. Hilary Swain directs the Archbold Biological Station, a center dedicated to research and conservation in the South Florida watershed.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related Episodes: Deborah Mitchell: The Artist as Guide to the Everglades, Jenny Larsson on Searching for Arctic Winter, Adam Nadel on Getting the Water Right, Artist Residency in the Everglades, Art and the Environment at Miami's Deering Estate, Jorge Menna Barreto on Environmental Sculpture, Andrea Bowers on Environmental Activism
Related Links: Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), Everglades National Park, Robert Chambers, Archbold Biological Station
Monday Feb 25, 2019
Monday Feb 25, 2019
In 2018, when the annual Creative Time Summit unfolds in Miami, we’re thrilled to participate. On Archipelagoes and Other Imaginaries: Collective Strategies to Inhabit the World brings together artists, thinkers, activists, and cultural producers whose practices stimulate change through planetary thinking.
The nearby Caribbean Archipelago serves as the perfect context within which to question colonial and postcolonial ways of seeing and thinking. The Summit delves into Miami’s historical connection to the Caribbean and, by extension, to Latin America and the entire world.
Voices, in order of appearance: Justine Ludwig, Fredo Rivera, Edwige Danticat, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Daniela Ortiz, Colibrí Sanfiorenzo-Barnhard, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Houston Cypress, Roc LaSeca, Edwige Danticat
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Live Performance Audio, in order of appearance: Drag en la Frontera, Samuel Tommie, Daniela Ortiz, Krudas Cubensi
Related Episodes: Where Art Meets Activism, LIVE from Dominican Republic with Tilting Axis, Mapping Caribbean Cultural Ecologies
Related Link: Creative Time
Monday Feb 18, 2019
Monday Feb 18, 2019
Artist Bill Fontana has a long-time relationship with sound and space. He's known for relocating sounds to create site-specific installations around the world.
Fontana describes his practice as "composition by listening." In this episode, we talk about what has inspired and informed his public art projects through the decades—from his 1981 Landscape Sculpture with Foghorns in San Francisco, to his 2018 Sonic Dreamscapes in Miami Beach.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Bill Fontana
Related episodes: Inside Miami's Sound Chamber; Stephen Vitiello on Sound Art
Related links: Bill Fontana, City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Art with a Sense of Place considers creative projects that respond to a physical space and those that react to or embrace a historic moment, a cultural environment, a socio-political tension, or a psychological space.
Emerging in the 1960s, site-specific art sought to transcend what was perceived as the over-curated, almost clinical context of the art museum. Artists rebelled by creating their own exhibition sites (Agnes Denes brought a Wheatfield to a New York City landfill). Some flaunted the rules of museum installation with live interventions (Joseph Beuys lived in a Soho gallery with a live coyote).
Our series of episodes on site sensitivity brings a broader range of cultural production into the conversation, exposing new ways of seeing place, space, and site in contemporary art.
Art with a Sense of Place, Part II, highlights conversations featured in the second issue of the Fresh Art International Smart Guide. We produce the guide as a series of downloadable pdfs. Each issue delves into a different theme—through select episodes, transcriptions and links to research that informs our podcast.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related episodes: Agustina Woodgate, Louis Grachos, Adam Schreiber, Tania Bruguera
Related link: Smart Guide, Issue 02 Art with a Sense of Place