Tatiana Istomina - Summer 2023 NEW WORK grantee
Tatiana Istomina is an artist and writer working in New York; her practice includes painting, sculpture, installation, and video. Istomina’s projects have been featured in exhibitions across the US and abroad; venues include the AIR gallery, the Drawing Center, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and others. Istomina is a recipient of numerous awards, including Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Chenven Foundation grant, the Individual Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, etc. She has worked at multiple artists residencies, such as Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands), RAVI (Belgium) and Air In-Silo (Austria). Istomina holds a PhD in physics (Yale University) and MFA in visual arts (Parsons New School). Her artist book “Fhilosofhy of the Encounter” was published by Pinsapo Press in 2018.
PROJECT PROPOSAL
“The Life of Flies” explores the physiological, ethical, and philosophical challenges arising in our relationship with the common fruit fly, Drosophila Melanogaster. Fruit flies are widespread in nature: they thrive in orchards and gardens feeding on decaying flowers and fruit. But a significant fraction of their population lives in biological laboratories, surviving under artificial conditions for thousands of generations. Cheap, harmless, and easy to maintain, drosophila has been the staple of biomedical research for over a hundred years. Due to the remarkable similarities between human and fly genomes and basic physiologies, drosophila is used as a proxy for humans in studies of diseases, mental disorders, aging, etc. Conveniently, flies are exempt from ethical protocols required by animal research: from science’s point of view, they are a perfect biological tool, neither entirely mechanical, nor fully alive. My project explores the life of Drosophila beyond its function as a laboratory instrument. If much of our knowledge of human biology comes from the study of flies, can we not learn from them some fundamental truths about human condition? Should we view flies as tiny humans, or, conversely, should we see ourselves as oversized flies? I raise a population of fruit flies in my studio, inside chemical glass vials arranged into complex fly environments using plastic tubing and wood scaffolding. I observe and document the life of individual flies and the evolution of a fly colony, as it is shaped by inner and outer tensions and pressures, such as its full dependence on the human minder. Using hand embroidery, film, and sculpture, I explore the uneasy ethics and psychology of human-fly interactions, the limits of biological determinism and the conditions of our knowledge about living nature.
-Tatiana Istomina
Summer 2023 REVIEW COMMITTEE
Dora Đurkesac (April 2023 BROADCAST) is an author in contemporary dance, intermedia art, and design research. Her work shapes through collective practices such as a queer bestiary, hybrid ecosystems, digital garden, imaginary artists' exhibition, or feminist manicure salon. In 2020 Đurkesac was the art director of the digital publication exploring changes in the art institution, Everything is New, initiated by Nikolay Alutin, De Appel, Amsterdam. Her work and performances have been shown in numerous institutions, such as Centrum, Haubrok Foundation, Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz; Spike, Berlin; Neu Now, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; La MAMA Theatre, New York; and Tjarnarbíó, Reykjavik. She was a part of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt in 2021. Currently, she explores topics of embodied cognition and develops practices such as "Rehearsing Collectivity" and "Anatomy of Encounters." She lives and works in Berlin.
Adler Guerrier (August 2021 ONE WORK), born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, lives and works in Miami, Florida. Guerrier received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida. Guerrier has presented solo exhibitions, Adler Guerrier: Conditions and Forms for blck Longevity at California African American Museum, Wander and Errancies at Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, and Adler Guerrier : Formulating a Plot at Pérez Art Museum Miami. He has also exhibited works at Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Liverpool, Museum of African Diaspora, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, and Whitney Museum. His works can be found in public collections including Walker Art Center, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and Studio Museum in Harlem.
Labkhand Olfatmanesh, an Iranian-American artist in Los Angeles, delves into feminism, race, and isolation. She fosters conversations among immigrant communities to unveil complex narratives shaped by language barriers. As an artist-in-residence at the 18th Street airport campus, her impactful work has graced global events like Photo London and local venues like Craft Contemporary. Recognized by the United Nations and British Council, Olfatmanesh has earned awards such as the LensCulture Portrait Awards. Her leadership shines through Arts for LA Fellowship and affiliations with Level Ground, while also serving as a grant panelist for institutions including the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. Holding qualifications from the London TV and Filmmaking Academy and a Graphic Design BA from Azad University, Tehran, her influence resonates worldwide.
Guilherme Peters,(Winter 2023 NEW WORK grantee) 1987, São Paulo. His practice is based on the premise that, in order to generate form, it is necessary to expend energy. His performances, films, videos, objects and installations invariably make visible the efforts necessary for their realization – whether they are identified as a sound wave, electrical currents or his own breath. Peters has participated in exhibitions such as Artifice and Fiction at Institute of Contemporary Art of Singapore (2019, Singapore), XXXV International Festival of Uruguay, Cinemateca Uruguaya Lorenzo Carnelli (2017, Montevideo, Uruguay); Building Imaginery Bridges Across Hard Ground, Art Dubai Contemporary (2015, Dubai, United Arab Emirates) along with many other international exhibitions.
Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai (2023 Curatorial Fellow, Prospect Art) is a transdisciplinary artist and curator, working across performance, video and installation, currently based in Los Angeles. Their research-based practice explores ways for identity and sense of belonging to remain undetermined while questioning dominant narratives of history and nationalism. They were born in Bangkok, Thailand, before their family moved to Europe where they spent their formative years. They came to the US in 2011. They received their Visual Arts Degree from the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Nantes Metropole and a License in Film Studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3. They hold a BFA from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and a MFA from the California College of the Arts, in San Francisco. They are a recipient of the SOMA Summer Award, Mexico City in 2016 and the emi kuriyama spirit award in 2020. They curated the MAHA Pavilion at the Bangkok Biennial 2020 and Tactics of Erasure and Rewriting Histories at Craft Contemporary in 2022 and at ReflectSpace Gallery at the Glendale Central Library in 2023.