The South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley is delighted to launch Crisis and Creativity: Artists Speak Series, a speaker series that addresses provocative and generative intersections between creative processes and societal, cultural, and environmental crises. The Series features conversations among artists, art professionals, curators, and scholars. The sixth event in this series features a conversation between visual artist and Assistant Professor of Performance Art at UC Berkeley, Asma Kazmi and Assistant Professor of Global Modern Art and South and Southeast Asian Art in the History of Art Department, Atreyee Gupta .

Saba Qizilbash was born in Lahore and raised in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She has a BFA in Painting from National College of Art, Pakistan and a Master’s degree in Art Education from Rhode Island School of Design, USA.

This panel discussion between the six Art Practice MFA '22 students, and exhibition curator, Claire Frost will consider the questions of what, how, and why artists make what they make. Speaking two at a time, the artists will speak about their artistic practice and the process of making work for their culminating MFA exhibition. Since 1970 the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive has hosted the annual MFA Art Practice exhibition.

Artist Seitu Ken Jones will discuss his art practice and how it is closely linked to African American foodways. His lecture will explore famed Black agricultural scientist George Washington Carver's lesser known works -- his paintings.

http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/events/13/art-tech-culture/4568/george-s-blues-an-investigation-of-george-washington-carver-s-legacy-as-an-artist-and-cook

Reserve here.

A public secret society of rotating membership, including core contributors Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys, New Red Order (NRO) collaborates with informants to create exhibitions, videos, and performances that question and re-channel subjective and material relationships to indigeneity. Orienting their work through the paradoxical conditions of Indigenous experience, NRO explores the contradictions and missteps that embody, in their own words, “the desire for indigeneity in the myths, dreams, and political foundations of the so-called Americas.”

Artist and Activist Seitu Jones will guide workshop participants through the process of tracing their shadows and creating stencils for rain or water-activated sidewalk sculptures.

Sumathi Ramaswamy is a cultural historian of South Asia and the British Empire and her research over the last few years has been largely in the areas of visual studies, the history of cartography, and gender. Her recent publications in this area include The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India (Duke University Press, 2010); and two edited volumes, Barefoot Across the Nation: Maqbool Fida Husain and the Idea of India (Routledge, 2010), and Empires of Vision (co-edited with Martin Jay, Duke University Press, 2014).

Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Wendy Red Star’s work is informed both by her cultural heritage and her engagement with many forms of creative expression, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance. An avid researcher of archives and historical narratives, Red Star seeks to incorporate and recast her research, offering new and unexpected perspectives in work that is at once inquisitive, witty and unsettling. In this lecture, Red Star will highlight five bodies of work, including older pieces as well as recent and upcoming projects. Following her lecture, Red Star will be in conversation with Beth Piatote, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Native American Studies. The event is free & open to the public.