Publics / Outside In

The School of Art community is invited to attend a mini 4-part lecture series organized by Elizabeth Tubergen and Desmond Lewis as part of their graduate courses “Publics” and “Outside In.”

Speaker choice focuses on artists and curators/art historians who engage with non-arts audiences through direct community work, research, or by engaging with collective memory via monuments.

All lectures will be approximately 45 minutes - 1 hour, followed by 30 minutes for Q&A.

Join the talks on Zoom here >>

Oscar Rene Cornejo, Artist and Educator, Founder of LACAP

Friday, February 26, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Oscar René Cornejo earned an MFA from Yale School of Art, a BFA from the Cooper Union, and was a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for research in El Salvador. In 2004, he cofounded the Latin American Community Art Project (LACAP), where for seven years he directed summer artist residencies to promote intercultural awareness through community art education. He is a founding member of Junte, an artist project based in Adjuntas, a town in the mountains of southern Puerto Rico. His work has been included in exhibitions at Radiator Gallery, The Queens Museum, Princeton University, and Diverseworks, among other venues. He currently teaches at the Cooper Union.

Onyedika Chuke, Artist, Educator, Archivist and Gallerist

Friday, March 5, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Onyedika Chuke is an artist and archivist living and working in New York. His largest body of work titled The Forever Museum Archive (2011-present), is a disquieting collection of sculptures, text, and images in which Chuke analyzes social, cultural and political structures. This website is titled The Forever Museum Archive: Sculptures and Locations, and represents roughly 60 percent of the archive and only focuses on objects conceptualized and fabricated by Chuke. A more comprehensive site is in development with a launch date projected for 2021-2022. From January 2018-2019, Chuke served as New York City Public Artist in Residence (P.A.I.R). The position placed him in the offices of Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) and Department of Corrections (DOC) Rikers Island. His work as a P.A.I.R artist entailed collaboration with individuals on Rikers Island facing extreme challenges, creating access to art and open dialogue between New York City policymakers and those in their custody. In addition, he utilized DOC’s archives to research architecture and historical landscape that have shaped New York City’s penological system. His ongoing research has been covered by various publications including Bomb Magazine. With a focus on social theory, drawing, painting and photography as well as sculptural mold-making, Chuke is equally invested in the processes of production techniques and research. His practice has been supported by venues such as The Drawing Center, SCAD Museum, The Shed, Sculpture Center and The American Academy in Rome. He is a graduate of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (2011).

Jessica Vaughn, Artist

Friday, March 26, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Jessica Vaughn is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Vaughn primarily works with discarded and mass-produced materials to create artworks that convey complex histories of place, production, and use. Vaughn has exhibited at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK), The Kitchen, Sculpture Center, Studio Museum in Harlem, Mass MoCA, Kunsthal Aarhus, and Pinakothek Der Moderne among others. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the ICA- Philadelphia and group exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Artand the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK). Vaughn is a 2021 Creative Capital recipient and was awarded a 2019 Graham Foundation Research Grant, and a 2019 Emerging Artists Publication Series with Printed Matter. She received her undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University and MFA degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Natasha Marie Llorens, Educator, Writer, Curator

Saturday, April 24th, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Natasha Marie Llorens is a Franco-American independent curator and writer. Recent curatorial projects include from what will we reassemble ourselves, a group exhibition on the representation of genocide at Framer Framed in Amsterdam and En Attendant Omar Gatlato, a survey of contemporary art from Algeria and its diaspora that opened in Marseille at La Friche de la Belle de Mai at the invitation of Triangle France / Astérides. Llorens edited the first English-language anthology of writing on Algerian and Franco-Algerian aesthetics and art history, published by Sternberg Press and distributed by MIT Press. Llorens writes about North African and Middle Eastern contemporary art and film, feminist and queer politics in art, philosophies of violence, decolonial curatorial practice, and the work of her long-term collaborators. Her writing has appeared in ArtReview, Modern Painters, BOMB Magazine, Pastelegram, WdW Review, Contemporary Art Stavanger, Ibraaz, and many exhibition catalogs. She is a regular contributor to Art Agenda. A graduate of the MA program at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard, and of the Ph.D. program in art history at candidate at Columbia University, her academic research is focused on five experimental films from Algeria produced between 1965 and 1979. She has taught at Columbia University, the Cooper Union, and Eugene Lang College, all in New York City, and the Curatorial Studies MA program at Parsons in Paris. She is a core tutor at the Piet Zwart in Rotterdam and a professor of art theory at the Royal Art Institute in Stockholm.