Video documentation of the 46: Artists’ Books: A Panel Discussion with Artists, Scholars and the Public presented on June 7, 2022 at 6:00pm-7:30pm ET on Zoom.
A free public panel discussion about artists’ books in relation to the new exhibition 46: Artists’ Books from Franklin Furnace Archive, 1976-2022. This panel brought together three artists whose work is featured in the exhibition: Elly Clarke, George Ferrandi, and Xinan (Helen) Ran, to share their experiences in self-publishing books and cross-disciplinary practice, and discuss the role of artists’ books in the creation of dialogues and engagement. The panel was moderated by Dr. Johanna Bauman, Head of Digital and Special Collections and Curator of Artists’ Books at Pratt Institute Libraries. There was an opportunity for Q&A with the audience.
Visit the full virtual exhibition here.
PANEL MEMBERS + BIOS
Johanna Bauman
Moderator
Johanna Bauman is the Head of Digital and Special Collections and Interim Head of Collection Management at the Pratt Institute Libraries where she oversees the operation and maintenance of Pratt’s extensive Circulating Collections, Special Collections, Digital Collections, and Archives. She began curating the Libraries’ artists’ book collection in 2018 and has worked closely with faculty in the School of Fine Art to build a collection to support the teaching of the history and making of artists’ books at Pratt. She holds an MA and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia, where she specialized in medieval and Renaissance garden history and theories of art.
Elly Clarke
Panelist
Elly Clarke is an artist interested in the performance and burden (‘the drag’) of the physical body and object in a digitally mediated world. She explores this through photography, screengrabs, video, music, writing, community-based projects and #Sergina – a multi-bodied, border-straddling drag queen who, across one body and several, sings and performs online and offline about love, lust and loneliness (and data discharge) in the mesh of hyper-dis/connection. Clarke’s work has been shown at venues that include Kiasma, Helsinki; Galerie Wedding, Berlin; mac Birmingham; the Banff Centre and the Lowry, Salford Quays.
Now, in collaboration and sometimes competition with her alter ego #Sergina, Clarke is doing a practice-led PhD at Goldsmiths London, examining the ‘Drag of Physicality in the Digital Age’, in which she is proposing drag as a potential mode and method of resistance to the feedback loop of bodies and data, and the constant tracking and tracing of identities in a capitalist surveillance context.
Xinan (Helen) Ran
Panelist
Xinan (Helen) Ran was born in Yakeshi, China and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Hunter College MFA candidate and received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2017. She is an Ox-Bow Summer Fellow (2016) and the co-founder of Tuft Love (@tuft.love)
Apart from her studio practice, she is an art educator and aspires to be a designer for new theaters. Past collaborations include Shout Alone Theater Company’s Chasing Light (2015), The Moonfish and The Knife (2018) and assisted works produced by Castillo Theater, All Stars Project in New York.
George Ferrandi
Panelist
George Ferrandi is an American artist interested in experimental approaches to narrative, often working with communities to collaborate on building and performing events that tell a story. Since the pandemic, she’s been focusing on more intimate actions that can still make us feel connected, like sending things in the mail.
George produces George’s Lovely Variety, a monthly subscription art situation. And she is the founder of Jump!Star, an initiative that looks to the eventual transition of Earth’s North Star as a locus for better seeing ourselves on the planet in the present.
