Interview with Dawit Petros, June 7, 2013
NMAFA: Welcome! Today we're chatting w/ #earthmatters artist @dawitlpetros.
NMAFA: "A Total Instance of Reflexivity" is the (short) title of @dawitlpetros' work in #earthmatters exhibit.
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros Can you tell our followers a bit about the inspiration behind the piece in #earthmatters?
DP: @NMAfA blackmirrors-landscape viewing devices used by artists to transcribe landscapes 18th-19thc, minimalist sculpture and land art
DP: @NMAfA geography of east africa-specifically the Rift Valley, and personal history
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros Why did you choose plexiglass as your medium for this piece? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA black plexiglass has few functions: "withholds" information that the photographs offer, becomes a mirrors onto which viewer's process
DP: @NMAfA of looking is inscribed, viewer's reflection locates them in physical framework of African histories.
Follower:: @dawitlpetros @NMAfA what is/are your favorite piece(s) in #earthmatters aside from your own? Why?
Follower:: @dawitlpetros @NMAfA (how) do you feel they compliment your own work?
DP: @NMAfA El Anatsui and Ghader Amer's earthworks. The framing of earth works within an African context is one that informs my project.
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros What impact do you think your upbringing in #Eritrea & beyond in E. Africa had on your development as an artist? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA Living as an African subject in the diaspora has encouraged me to reflect on the predicament of the Afriacn artist as both a producer
DP: @NMAfA and a thinker of forms and as an interpreter of contemporary African subjectivity?
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros What meaning does the exhibit's theme, #earthmatters, hold for you?
DP: @NMAfA That our entire existence is intricately linked with our place on this earth. That it is impossible to have a sense of ourselves as
DP: @NMAfA individuals and communities unless we take into consideration the larger home-earth-that we inhabit
NMAFA: Well said! @dawitlpetros "Impossible to have sense of ourselves as indiv/commun. unless take into consid. the home- Earth -that we inhabit"
NMAFA: For those who haven't visited #earthmatters, @dawitlpetros' piece includes landscape images that can only be seen at a close distance.
DP: @NMAfA the landscape images are the rift valley-a geological formation that runs the length of east africa
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros How do you typically begin a photograph or a photo-based work-- or a work in general? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA It depends on specific project. Usually research and travel to particular locations that have either a symbolic or personal
DP: @NMAfA significance. then co-allate research and writing, begin making sketches, drawings then find the metaphor, the poetic for the work
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros How has your work/practice as an artist changed over time? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA The work has become more economical, less dependent on representational imagery and more focused on abstraction, colour.
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros What do you want viewers to discover in your works? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA I am less concerned with any grand discoveries and more with viewers questioning their preconceived notions about various things
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros What projects are you currently working on? Is the theme of Earth & its role in our lives carried forward? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA I am completing the Chrome series (2009-2013), which is s composed of photographs, wall murals, and sculptures.
DP: @NMAfA These works explore the urban localities of Addis Ababa and Dakar through the structure of modernist legacies--the grid and the
DP: @NMAfA monochrome--as paradigms of the quest for color and form.
DP: @NMAfA The theme of earth is a consistent undercurrent in all my work-the examination of particular sites in every projects occurs within
DP: @NMAfA an awareness of a larger physical space.
DP: @NMAfA I am preparing for my first solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in October 2013.
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros What artists/photographers have inspired you most in your work? #earthmatters
DP: @NMAfA I draw influence from artists such as Isaac Julien, Glenn Ligon, Yinka Shonibare, Magdalena Campos-Pons
NMAFA: @dawitlpetros As we close out our chat- would you leave followers w/any final words abt #earthmatters- as a theme or exhibition!
DP: @NMAfA Art operates around a shared responsibility of dialogue between an art object and audience so please go and engage the works.
NMAFA: A big thanks to @dawitlpetros for chatting with us today! See his work, & many others, in our #earthmatters exhibit: http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/earthmatters/index.html
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Interview with Ghada Amer, August 9, 2013
NMAFA: Hello all and welcome to our interview with #earthmatters artist @Ghada_Amer! We'll be chatting about her works in/themes of the show.
NMAFA: For those unfamiliar, @Ghada_Amer has two works in #earthmatters: 1. A Garden installation titled "Hunger"
NMAFA: And her 2nd work in #earthmatters is a collaborative piece w/Reza Farkhondeh titled "We Are Destroying Planet Earth"
NMAFA: We're going to get started w/a few Qs- Followers, if you have any Q's, include either @nmafa or #earthmatters in tweets & we'll get to them!
NMAFA: Let's get started! @Ghada_Amer, can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind "Hunger"? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA I was invited to make a Garden in the lush grounds of the Smithsonian, but being in Washington
GA:: @NMAfA I was more reminded of the political ground
GA:: @NMAfA and I was thinking about the countries and people who depends on the US aid to survive.
GA:: @NMAfA that is how I got the idea to make a "political" Garden: Hunger
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer How do you typically begin a piece--particularly an outdoor piece like Hunger? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA it is very important for me to see first the physical space.
GA:: @NMAfA then I start to ask myself where is the piece going to be? who are the people living there
GA:: @NMAfA and who are going to see it.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer With Hunger, you planted a Garden of rice. How will the Garden evolve and when will it be harvested? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA it was very important for me to get a crop, and to make an event with it after I harvest
GA:: @NMAfA harvest will be sometime late September or October, depending on the weather.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer Can you now tell us a bit about the inspiration behind "We Are Destroying Planet Earth"? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA This work is in collaboration with Reza Farkhondeh who is an iranian american artist
GA:: @NMAfA It is part of a series we did from 2005 to 2007
GA:: @NMAfA everybody has a responsibility in destroying our planet.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What meaning does the exhibit's theme, #earthmatters, hold for you? @smithsonian
GA:: @NMAfA @smithsonian earth matters has a beautiful title and very much self explanatory because
GA:: @NMAfA @smithsonian earth does matter to me!
NMAFA: "Earth matters to me": @Ghada_Amer. Followers--in what ways does the #earth matter to you & impact your lives?
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What impact do you think your upbringing in #Egypt had on your development as an artist? #earthmatters #africa
GA:: @NMAfA Egypt has inspired me all along
GA:: @NMAfA it is a country that lives in me
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What was your relationship to "earth" and the landscape in #Egypt? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA One of my favorite landscape is the desert, it makes me very calm
Follower:: @nmafa @Ghada_Amer Have always loved your embroidered paintings. In what ways have themes in those works continued in #earthmatters?
GA:: @KMAugustine @NMAfA I have always used different medium but I am only known for my embroidered work
GA:: @KMAugustine @NMAfA But my embroidered works are very political, so are the works at earth matters
Follower:: @Ghada_Amer @NMAfA True. But I still pick up on issues of the feminine, love, wildness & respect. Your use of both media feel connected 2 me
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer Your previous work has come up in conversation. How has your work changed over time? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA I do not know if my work has "changed" over time.
GA:: @NMAfA I can feel that only now (after 20 years) I can really paint with embroidery
GA:: @NMAfA It has become mature, it did not change.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer Interesting- What are the "constants" in your work? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA One constant is women, desire, love and loneliness. The other one is wars and the human condition.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What artists have inspired you most in your work? How have other female artists influenced you? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA My first inspiration was Matisse (I grew up in the South of France)
GA:: @NMAfA Fernand Leger as well.
GA:: @NMAfA I was only aware of the "female" artist in the 80's.
GA:: @NMAfA Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Katarina Fitsch
GA:: @NMAfA These three female artist were an eye opener to me
Follower:: @Ghada_Amer @NMAfA That was a pretty powerful period. Does Ana Mendieta's works relate to your pieces in the natural environment as well?
GA:: @KMAugustine @NMAfA I was aware of Ana Mendieta works only when I moved to the US
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer (If anything) What do you want viewers to discover in your works? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA I want the viewer to feel inspired when they look at my work.
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What projects are you currently working on, outside of #earthmatters?
GA:: @NMAfA I am working on my solo show in New York at Cheim&Read. opening in the next spring
NMAFA: @Ghada_Amer What--if any-- are the themes that the new show be dealing with? #earthmatters
GA:: @NMAfA women as usual:) but I do not like to explain in advance, people has to see. I am a visual artist after all!
NMAFA: Many thanks to #earthmatters artist @Ghada_Amer for chatting w/us today. Visit @NMAfA & check out the #earthmatters exhibit to see her works
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