I'll be presenting on my work Maritime Messaging: Red Hook as part of the panel "Climate Change: Artists Respond" organized by the formidable Julie Reiss at Baruch College.
This panel brings together contemporary artists whose artwork contributes to a broader public understanding of the consequences of climate change for human and non-human existence, and the urgent need for action and mitigation. The seemingly overwhelming scale of the climate crisis is a recognized barrier to public participation in tackling the climate crisis. Art can overcome this resistance through a myriad of methods, from educating and raising awareness to modeling problem solving or giving voice and form to intangible forces. Xavier Cortada, Anina Gerchick, Mary Mattingly and Katherine Behar have created art that is both geographically specific and universally relevant, providing entry points around which people can coalesce.
Organized and moderated by Julie Reiss
Co-moderator: Katherine Behar
Panelists: Mary Mattingly, Xavier Cortada, Katherine Behar, Anina Gerchick
Thursday, November 18, 4:00-5:30 p.m. ET
Zoom Registration:https://baruch.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcOyrrDkpEtL5ZSYfMhr15FsZJbI8-zL6
Supported by We Are Climate Action (WACA) in collaboration with the New Media Artspace.
I'm delighted to visit the University of Michigan's Digital Studies Institute to participate in their Junior Faculty Incubator.
More info: https://www.digitalstudies.umich.edu/
I am excited to present a snapshot of my work on "Artificial Ignorance" as part of a series of panels on "Genealogies of the Human in AI Systems" at the 4S conference, "Good Relations".
Genealogies of the Human in AI Systems: 1
October 8, 2021
8:00 a.m. ET
More info: https://www.4sonline.org/meeting/accepted-open-panels/
I am humbled to be joined by a group of tremendous thinkers for the "Artificial Ignorance Roundtable" at SLSA 2021. Our roundtable, which is open to the public on Zoom, will derive from our activities the previous day during a one-day workshop.
I'm deeply grateful to these esteemed colleagues for agreeing to join me in this endeavor:
Artificial Ignorance Roundtable
October 2, 2021
SLSA Conference, "Energy"
Ann Arbor, MI, USA / online
More info: https://easychair.org/smart-program/SLSA2021/index.html
I am thrilled to share this short meditation on basketry and computation as part of Hoosac Institute Journal 9, a wonderful online publication coordinated by the brilliant Jenny Perlin.
Read in full: https://hoosacinstitute.com/Katherine-Behar
I am delighted to share Recto & Verso, an online group exhibition addressing women's empowerment through community-driven digital and new media art works-in-progress. I curated this exhibition featuring works made by the participants of Creative Impact Lab Cairo during our summer intensive.
Recto & Verso showcases works-in-progress created during Creative Impact Lab Cairo's workshop and project development intensive. Creative Impact Lab Cairo is a five-week online creative exchange convened with 18 Egypt-based artists and led by interdisciplinary artist Katherine Behar.
The diverse works in the exhibition collectively express the multifaceted complexities of women's empowerment in Egypt. "Recto and verso" is a Latin phrase used by book designers to indicate the front and back sides of a page. In the "old media" pages of a book, the physical form of the paper page ensures that there is always another side. So too, in the digital artworks in this exhibition, new media forms ensure the structural impossibility of reductivist thinking—such as the notion of a single universal value system that would yield an easy resolution to these complex cultural issues. Instead, these works dwell in the complexities, demonstrating that there is always another side to the story.
Recto & Verso features new media art works-in-progress by Rawan Abbas, Youssef Abdelmaged, Doha Aboelezz, Amany Adel, Habiba Afifi, Basma Ahmed, Ahmad Aiuby, Ramah Aleryan, Sara El-Barkouky, Esraa Elfeky, Fatma El Zahraa, Ahmed Fouadeldin, Fatma Heiba, Mariam Ibrahim, Dina Jereidini, Yara Mekawei, Agnes Michalczyk, and Zeina Raafat.
Creative Impact Lab Cairo (2021) is a ZERO1 international exchange supported by U.S. Embassy Cairo and hosted by Medrar. Outreach support is provided by Out of the Circle, D2D Art, and Cairotronica.
Recto & Verso
Virtual Exhibition Opening
9 PM EET
July 15, 2021
View the exhibition online: https://cil.medrar.org/
More Info: https://zero1.org/programs/international-exchange/creative-impact-lab-cairo/
In their recent essay, published in MATTER: Journal of New Materialist Research, Alisa Kronberger and Lisa Krall offer a fascinating discussion of my work Roomba Rumba.
Read their article in full here: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/matter/article/view/35889
I'm honored to have been selected as the Lead Artist for Creative Impact Lab Cairo, an international exchange organized by ZERO1 and hosted by Medrar for Contemporary Art. During June and July, I will be leading group of Egypt-based artists to create digital artworks that address the theme of women's empowerment.
I will be kicking off the Lab with an artist talk, "Backups & Backchannels: From Saving to Secrets in Art, Technology, and Women's Empowerment"
Backups & Backchannels
Artist Talk/Opening Plenary on Zoom
June 18, 2021
More Info: https://zero1.org/programs/international-exchange/creative-impact-lab-cairo/
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/211288070838850/
Artist Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXLwHAxEsUs
It's a pleasure and an honor to return for the second installment of my studio visit in "On the Spot" with The Brooklyn Rail. Here I'm sharing more of my work with hand santizer dispensers, this time focusing on my interactive installation work-in-progress, Indispensable, and some of the water soluble graphite drawings that feed this work.
View on IGTV: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CQBavP7BPfK/
I'm honored to share some of what I've been working on in my Toronto studio with friends at The Brooklyn Rail. This virtual studio visit is part of the Rail's "On the Spot" series, which has been a try lifeline to art and art practice during the pandemic. I'm sharing my new explorations in ceramics—a series of "dispensed with" automatic hand sanitizer dispensers with which I'm meditating on the automation of care work, essential work during the pandemic, and the humbling gesture we use to approach dispensers with two hands coming together in supplication.
View on IGTV: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CPf9De3Bn6b/
I am delighted to share this thoughtful and thorough interview, beautifully composed by Yvonne Fang for VAAAM, the Virtual Asian American Art Museum. In this multimedia interview, combining writing and video Q&A, Yvonne has done a remarkable job of covering many aspects of my solo artwork, my writing, and my art collaboration, Disorientalism, my ongoing project with Marianne M. Kim.
"Technology, Labor, and Race: A Conversation with Katherine Behar": https://vaaam.tome.press/chapter/spotlight-katherine-behar/
I'm excited to virtually visit Oxford University to share thoughts on object-oriented feminism as part of an interdisciplinary panel organized by the student group, People for Womxn in Philosophy. My talk will be entitled "Extending Feminist Solidarities to Objects" and I am looking forward to our conversations on this topic!
PWIP Panel
February 11, 2021
12:00 PM ET, online
More info: https://pwips.home.blog/
I am delighted to be in conversation with the phenomenal artist Ho Tzu Nyen at Baruch College's Mishkin Gallery. We will be discussing his tremendous generative video project The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia.
Artist Talk with Ho Tzu Nyen
February 4, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM EST, online
More info: https://m.facebook.com/events/397193131505545
The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia: https://cdosea.org/#video/a
Curators Elham Khattab and Rania Atef will be interviewing me in conjunction with the Tasawar Curatorial Studios exhibition "ON|OFF". I'm looking forward to our conversation on Zoom!
Interview with Katherine Behar
January 28, 2021
12:00-1:30 PM EST, online
More info and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/on-i-off-interview-with-katherine-behar-on-e-waste-tickets-137807525017
I am looking forward to spending the month of June 2019 May 2022 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I am delighted to have been awarded a residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute. SFAI's residency theme for the year is "labor"—a long-standing interest of mine. I am anticipating a fruitful month developing work in this context, and in a landscape I love.
From January 2020 through November 2020, SFAI is bringing together artists, creative practitioners, content experts, and innovative thinkers from all over the world that consider what vitality, prosperity, and sustainability might look like beyond profit; to envision new systems for "making a living" that elevate all of humanity and infuse our world with freedom, compassion, and harmony; and that reflect the profoundly generative acts of labor.
I'm also looking forward to sharing my work for SFAI's monthly "Process" event on June 10. Stay tuned for details.
Labor Residency
Santa Fe Art Institute
1600 St Michaels Drive
Building #31
Santa Fe, NM 87505
More info: https://sfai.org/labor-residency/katherine-behar/
I'm delighted that the University of Michigan has extended my artist in residence for the full 2019/2020 academic year ongoingly throughout the pandemic so that I can conclude my work in January 2022! I am continuing my work with a team of talented undergraduates from Computer Science, Engineering, and Art to develop a new version of "Anonymous Autonomous" in relation to my current research focus on "Artificial Ignorance."
I am being generously hosted by a partnership spanning the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC), Stamps School of Art and Design, the School or Information, the School of Engineering, and the Robotics Institute.
IRWG Annoucement: https://irwg.umich.edu/news/irwg-mcubed-research-incentive-awarded-mcubed-30-cube-future-ethics-society-and-computing
More info: http://esc.umich.edu
ESC Fall Calendar: ESC Fall Events 2019 (PDF)