History and geography, storyboard and grid – Jafri’s talk will focus on the interstitial spaces between these poles opened up by three of her recent works. Jafri will discuss her ongoing photo research project “Independence Day 1934-1975.” The project is fueled by Jafri’s interest in questions of heritage and the archive, and the role of photography in the formation of historical and national narratives during the process of decolonization in Asia and Africa. Other works will address topics ranging from the production of desire versus the production of goods (Avalon, 2011) to photo/text works focusing on the digitalization of the photographic image and its consequences for issues as diverse as cultural memory and copyright law (Getty vs. Ghana, Corbis vs. Mozambique, 2012).
Maryam Jafri is an artist working in video, performance and photography. Informed by a research-based, interdisciplinary process, her artworks are often marked by a visual language poised between film and theater and a series of narrative experiments oscillating between script and document, fragment and whole. She holds a BA in English & American Literature from Brown University, an MA from NYU/Tisch School of The Arts and is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She lives and works in New York and Copenhagen.
Maryam Jafri’s lecture will be moderated by Gedney Barclay (ACT) with response by Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell (Guggenheim / MIT HTC).
ACT’s Monday night lecture series is conceived by Gediminas Urbonas, ACT director, and coordinated by Amanda Moore, ACT alumna ‘11, in conversation with ACT graduate students.
Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.
