Past Talks & More | Artist Talks

Stephanie Syjuco

Archive = FAIL

Moderated by Ohio State’s Courtney Hunt and Carmen Winant

Virtual

Explore how power and privilege shape our institutional histories—and more crucially, what those histories leave out—in this cosponsored talk with California-based visual artist Stephanie Syjuco.

Institutional repositories, archives, and museums are tasked with housing cultural collections, framing narratives, and creating research opportunities for future generations. What happens when the holes, blank spots, mislabeled categories, and margins of an archive reveal more about who isn't included in a national story?

Syjuco will share recent projects drawing on research from online databases, internet searches, civic libraries, and museum archives. At stake is an understanding of how archives (and images) function to reinforce and reinscribe existing power structures, creating barriers for placing oneself into the line of history.

Diversities in Practice

A new collaboration with Ohio State’s Wexner Center for the Arts, Department of Art, and Living Culture Initiative, this series will include talks and moderated discussions that feature artists engaged in social justice-oriented projects and practices. Working in varied media, Christine Sun Kim, Stephanie Syjuco, and others will challenge our assumptions by taking a complex, and sometimes personal look at issues of accessibility discrimination, race-based displacement, capitalism, labor, and systems of authority and authenticity. These presentations will be available to view online throughout 2020–21 as well as options to watch with a small ticketed audience at the Wex. Check wexarts.org for updates and details.
 

Interested in appearing on camera at the Wexner Center as part of this talk? Ten free tickets are available for students and the public to watch this artist talk at the Wex in Free Space. You’ll be featured on camera for the artist and online viewers as well as have the ability to participate in the Q&A. Please email education@wexarts.org with questions or to reserve a ticket by Mon, Oct 12, at 5 pm.

Above: Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019 (detail)
Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chromakey fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, and artificial plants
Mixed media
20 x 17 x 8. ft. overall
Part of the solo exhibition Stephanie Syjuco: Rogue States at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2019
Photo: Stephanie Syjuco

"Syjuco’s disparate images and objects form a darkly absurd still life of our culture’s psycho-political unconscious."
Artforum
A selection of photos on a table. Hands and finger covers portions of the image on each

Block Out the Sun, 2019 (detail)
Photographic intervention in the archives of the Missouri Historical Society
Thirty archival pigment prints (8 x 10 in. each) mounted on aluminum and displayed in custom vitrine
Photo courtesy of the artist

Two hands covering a black and white image

Block Out the Sun, 2019 (detail)
Photographic intervention in the archives of the Missouri Historical Society, Mercantile Society, and the Missouri Public Library
Thirty archival pigment prints mounted on aluminum (8 x 10 in. each), wooden risers, and display case
Installation 36 x 96 x 48 in. overall
Produced during an artist residency in summer 2019, supported by The Luminary and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

A collection of colorful images including a photo of seated person covered with a sheet. Various other photos of shapes and colors

Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019
Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chromakey fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, and artificial plants
Mixed media
20 x 17 x 8 ft. overall
Part of the solo exhibition Stephanie Syjuco: Rogue States at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2019
Photo: Stephanie Syjuco

An array of photos, color bars, and archival material on a rough wood surface

Anarchive, 2020 (work in progress)
Large format digital paper prints, endless configuration
Images generated from a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship
Image courtesy of the artist

About the speakers

Stephanie Syjuco chevron-down chevron-up

Stephanie Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of racialized, exclusionary narratives of history and citizenship. Her recent exhibitions include Being: New Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Public Knowledge at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Rogue States at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. She lives and works in Oakland, California. Learn more at the artist’s web site.

Courtney Hunt chevron-down chevron-up

Courtney Hunt is the Art & Design Librarian in Ohio State’s Fine Arts Library and an assistant professor at The Ohio State University Libraries. Hunt provides innovative instruction and research consultation for Ohio State’s Departments of Art; Arts Administration, Education & Policy; Design; and History of Art, as well as for members of the public and independent researchers. Hunt is an active member of the Art Libraries Society of North America, serving on the Professional Development Committee and volunteering as a blog editor for ArLiSNAP. Hunt takes great care in creating a welcoming and empowering space for students, faculty, artists and researchers. More about the speaker.

Carmen Winant chevron-down chevron-up

Carmen Winant, the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Ohio State’s Department of Art, is an artist, writer, and former Dean of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has participated in exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art and Sculpture Center in New York and the Wexner Center, MoCA Cleveland, and Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. Winant has also curated the performative lecture series Practice, presented in Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York, and has published two artist’s books, My Life as a Man with Horses (Think Press) and My Birth (ITI Press and SPBH Editions). More about the speaker.

Cosponsored by Ohio State's Department of Art's Visiting Artist Program and Wexner Center for the Arts

MADE POSSIBLE BY
American Electric Power Foundation
Greater Columbus Arts Council
L Brands Foundation
The Columbus Foundation
Ohio Arts Council
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Huntington Bank
Nationwide Foundation

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
Kaufman Development
Cardinal Health Foundation

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Past Talks & More

Stephanie Syjuco