Graduate Student Talk: Christopher Joshua Benton
Wednesday, May 18, 5:30 – 6:30 PM
Join Christopher Joshua Benton, a student in the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT, to learn more about Matthew Angelo Harrison: Robota. This talk will focus on the importance of archiving and found objects. Benton will examine how his own artistic practice and research relies on these themes and shares parallels with Harrison’s practice.
About the Speaker
Christopher Joshua Benton (b. 1988) is a UAE-based artist working across installation, sculpture, and film. He works closely with communities and within neighborhoods to instigate collaboration while sharing stories of power, labor, and hope. His practice explores how the diaspora uses culture and innovation to stage resistance to postcolonial and neoliberal forces. He’s an avid collector of discarded material and obsesses over the entangled narratives these found objects embody.
Past work has been presented in NYC, Tokyo and the Emirates with solo presentations at Abu Dhabi Art, Dubai Design Week, the Venice Biennale, and the Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. His art has been featured on the BBC World News and in outlets like Dezeen, Vogue Arabia, and Vice Magazine. His writing and cultural criticism has appeared in Identity Magazine, The Flagpole, and Global Art Daily. He is currently pursuing his MS in Art, Culture, and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, through the generous support of the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation.
About the Artist
Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1989, United States; lives and works in Detroit) completed his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. Solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Basel (2021), the Broad Museum at Michigan State University (2018), Atlanta Contemporary (2017), and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2016). Harrison’s work has been included in important group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and ICA Philadelphia (2019); the New Museum and MCA Chicago (2018); and The Studio Museum in Harlem (2017).
Graduate Student Talks
MIT graduate students explore current exhibitions at the List Center through the lens of their own research, background and interests. Join us for this interdisciplinary lecture series where we dive into how art and research are overlapping on MIT’s campus.
The List Visual Arts Center will continue to follow MIT’s COVID protocols.
