Morehshin Allahyari and Stephanie Dinkins
Artist Talk
Difference Machines Closing Event
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
6:00PM - 9:00PM
View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests.
Standing program
All ages
Come down to the Grand Theater for an intimate salon-style gathering with introductions to the works by the artists themselves! Afterwards, stick around for an informal dialogue between Allahyari and Dinkins, moderated by our associate curator Wade Wallerstein.
7:00pm Barry Threw - Welcoming Remarks from Gray Area Executive & Artistic Director
7:10pm Morehshin Allahyari - Artist Talk
7:20pm Stephanie Dinkins - Artist Talk
7:30pm Morehshin Allahyari & Stephanie Dinkins - Panel Discussion moderated by Gray Area Associate Curator Wade Wallerstein
7:55pm Closing Remarks
Both artists have rich, research-based practices that think through new materialities: 3D scan files, 3D-printed objects, and even artificially intelligent beings. How is race encoded in emerging tech? And how can artistic inquiries help us to navigate complex and sometimes problematic innovation?
This ticketed event will take place on a special night, not during normal gallery hours, so booking in advance is recommended. This event is FREE for Gray Area Members.
Inspired by the creation of collective archives, Morehshin Allahyari (she/her/hers) makes 3-D printed sculptures, videos, and virtual reality experiences that challenge social and gender norms and explore cultural contradictions. She is the recipient of the United States Artist Fellowship (2021), and her work has been shown in venues such as the New Museum, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
Stephanie Dinkins’s (she/her/hers) art practice employs emerging technologies, documentary practices, and social collaboration to build equity and community sovereignty. She is particularly driven to work with communities of color to co-create more equitable social and technological ecosystems. Dinkins is a Kusama Professor of Art at Stony Brook University, where she founded the Future Histories Studio.
Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art addresses the complex relationship between the technologies we use and the identities we inhabit. The exhibition presents the work of seventeen contemporary artists who ask some of the most urgent questions we face today: How is technology changing the way we see ourselves, and each other? In what ways does it contribute to—or allow us to resist—prejudice and systemic forms of oppression? What role should it have in our lives and in our communities?
Dynamic and interactive, these projects transform the space of the museum into a laboratory for experimenting with our increasingly powerful “difference machines,” as we strive to invent a more equitable future.
This exhibition was originated in 2021 by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and co-curated by Tina Rivers Ryan, Curator at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, with Paul Vanouse, Professor at the University at Buffalo. Its presentation at Gray Area is coordinated by Wade Wallerstein, Associate Curator & Community Manager at Gray Area.
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