We are so pleased to finally release our conversation with artist, performer, and curator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for our Art, Gender, and Sexuality segment. We talk about Bhutto’s journey around the world to his current home in San Francisco, his queer, Muslim, futuristic, revolutionary, zombie drag performance alter-ego Faluda Islam, Bhutto’s collaborations, and his work in Queer Muslim Futurisms.
Pinar Yoldas on "Art and Climate Crisis"
Head over to Soundcloud to tune in to our latest episode for our "Art and Climate Crisis" segment with Pinar Yoldas! Pinar is an infradisciplinary designer/artist/researcher. Her work develops within biological sciences and digital technologies through architectural installations, kinetic sculpture, sound, video and drawing with a focus on post-humanism, eco-nihilism, anthropocene and feminist technoscience.
Her solo shows include The Warm, the Cool and the Cat at Roda Sten Konsthall (2016), Polyteknikum Museum Moscow (2015), An Ecosystem of Excess, Ernst Schering Project Space among many. Her group shows include ThingWorld, NAMOC National Art Museum of Beijing (2014); Transmediale Festival, Berlin (2014), ExoEvolution at ZKM (2015), 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts (2016).
Pinar’s residencies include the MacDowell Colony, UCross Foundation, VCCA, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Duke University, Quartier21 Künstlerstudio-Programm, Transmediale Villem Flusser research residency at UdK Berlin. She has been an invited speaker at SAIC, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Northwestern University, Angewandte Kunst, University of Arizona, Reed College, University of Buffalo, BacNet15, Penn State and UCLA among many others. Her work has been featured in Arte TV, Die Welt, The Creators Project, Art21 Blog, Der Spiegel, Vogue Turkey and Artlink BioArt issue to name a few.
She holds a Ph.D. from Duke University where she was affiliated with Duke Institute of Brain Sciences and Media Arts and Sciences. She holds a Bachelors of Architecture from Middle East Technical University, a Master of Arts from Bilgi University, a Master of Science from Istanbul Technical University and a Master of Fine Arts from University of California, Los Angeles where she worked at the Art|Sci Center and the UCLA Game lab. Her book An Ecosystem of Excess was published by ArgoBooks in 2014. Pinar is a 2015 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts and a 2016 FEAT Future Emerging Arts and Technologies Award recipient.
She holds a bronze medal in organic chemistry in the national science olympics and had her first solo painting exhibition when she was five.
Tori Currier
Hello from summer intern, Tori Currier
Hi everyone, my name is Tori Currier and I am excited to intern at Critical Bounds this summer. I am a first-generation college student who transferred to Smith College last fall. I am an Art History major with a focus on LGBTQ+ art, but my studies began at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
HCC offers a program called “Learning Communities.” Learning Communities give students from many walks of life the opportunity to take courses at local 4-year universities, like Smith College. During my time at HCC, I was fortunate enough to take a Learning Community that met at Smith. The course was about “the New York School,” a group of experimental visual artists, writers, musicians, and dancers in 1950’s and 1960’s New York. In these courses alongside Smith students, I discovered my capability and passion for art history. I am particularly passionate about the art of artists who have been traditionally marginalized, like those from the LGBTQ+ community, and women artists of the New York School. (One of Elaine de Kooning’s self-portraits is framed on my bedroom wall.)
At Smith, I have become especially focused on the art of the AIDS crisis. I am using my practice to spotlight the influence of AIDS crisis art on art today and challenge the societal assumption that HIV/AIDS is a virus of the past instead of an ongoing epidemic.
Under ‘read more’ you can find some of the artists and works that inform my practice.
As a creative writer working toward a career in higher education, I am also passionate about alternative modes of education, like historical fiction. Presently, I am developing a television screenplay about LGBTQ+ artists during the 1960’s - 1980’s, hoping to educate younger generations about the community’s history and the social roles that art has played.
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From top left: Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman, Dr. Eric Avery in studio (photo by Charlie Warden), Carrie Redway, Bethany Tabor, J Simmz, Dr. Bettina Judd.
All the Updates
It has been a busy past month, with moving, settling in, and recording.
During the past few weeks we have been fortunate to speak with several illuminating guests: Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman spoke with us about his upcoming feature film Early Stage, “…an anthology film, speculating about the inner life of artificially intelligent networks.”
For our segment on Art and Death, we conversed with Bethany Tabor, a cultural arts programmer whose work focuses on death and end of life practices, J Simmz, a curator, writer, and co-founder of Doppelgänger Projects in New York, who works closely with the Death Positive Movement. Simmz conceptualizes exhibitions with heavy focus on the cycles of life and death, mysticism, and transcendence. This segment also included poet, mixed media artist, founder of Thedna Arts, and death doula Carrie Redway. Redway’s work with death is closely related to cycles of nature, folklore, mythology, and ritual.
We also delved more deeply into our Art and Health segment, speaking with artist and physician Dr. Eric Avery. Avery’s work has spanned several decades, and includes work exploring the social side of the AIDS/HIV crisis, as well as emerging infectious diseases, human rights abuses, death, and sexuality. We were also excited to speak with Dr. Bettina Judd, a writer, artist, performer, current Assistant Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, and author of Patient, a book of poems that explores the historical utilization of, and standardization of the dehumanization of Black, non-cisgender male bodies in the field of Eurocentric healthcare that continues today.
Our new intern, Tori Currier.
We would also like to take this time to welcome our summer intern Tori Currier! Tori is originally from East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She currently resides in Northampton, Massachusetts where she attends Smith College. Tori is a junior (2022J) majoring in Art History. Focused on LGBTQ+ art, she is passionate about the role of art in social movements. Presently, she is conducting research for an honors thesis about AIDS crisis art and its continued censorship in the art world today.
Tori intends to pursue a career in higher education. Her ambitions include changing how art history is traditionally taught by giving more attention to artists who have long been excluded or underappreciated. Interested in how history can be conveyed through creative fiction, Tori is developing a television screenplay about LGBTQ+ artists from the 60’s - 80’s, hoping to educate younger generations about the community’s history and the significant social roles that art has played throughout these decades.
As an intern for Critical Bounds, she will strive to facilitate conversations about the importance of art in critical global issues. She is enthusiastic about how programs and websites in the social media age can become spaces for marginalized voices as well as tools to make education more accessible.
Tori will be doing research, handling a lot of our social media, and taking over the blog for the next few weeks, as well as making an episode of her own in August, and we are so happy to have her.
Carol Rashawnna Williams. Image from 2019 Evergreen Magazine article by Cyrus Inglis.
Carol Rashawnna Williams on "Art and Climate Crisis"
It is time to listen to the first episode of our Art and Climate Crisis segment with Carol Rashawnna Williams. Through her work, Williams presents climate crisis through the lens of racial inequalities. Her often-communal art experiences explore our personal relationships to the land in order to promote healing, and further our understanding and personal responsibilities—to the earth and to each other.
In addition to her creative endeavors, Williams herself is active in community-building, and has been certified through Seattle Parks & Rec as an Urban Forest Educator, spending time teaching about “…conifers, indigenous, and invasive species.”
Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Music***, and Spotify to hear us talk about all of this, her childhood in Germany and Tacoma, the changing face of Seattle, how structural inequity affects climate concerns, and what individuals can do to make a difference.
Stay At Home (but go out virtually)
Hi All, I hope everyone is healthy and feeling as safe as it is possible to feel right now. We are all on edge, and uncertain of the future, but we are all in this together, even while we are apart. It’s fine to feel anxious or depressed, or sad or angry. These are all valid feelings, and if you need help or to talk, reach out to someone you trust, or a stranger on the internet. I promise you, most of us are feeling that way too and you are not alone.
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Things to Do While Stuck at Home
Being under quarantine (or social distancing, if you aren’t under actual quarantine yet) can feel eternal. Although I am part of the population who is still going to work every day, I sympathize with the prospect of having my movements even more limited than they currently are. Luckily, we exist in the age of the Internet, and there are Many, Many ways to pass the time:
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