Three UAlbany Presenters Sponsor New Creative Series

Top row, from left: Baseera Khan, Nassim Soleimanpour and Damon Young. Second row, from left: Ping Chong, Alex Bradley Cohen and Ibi Zoboi. Third row, from left: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Jade Solomon Curtis and Ashley Teamer.

ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 20, 2020) — After working collaboratively for three years on The Creative Life series, a series of live, on-stage interviews with leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines, the University Art Museum, NYS Writers Institute and UAlbany Performing Arts Center have created a new virtual series for Fall 2020. 

The series begins on Thursday with Baseera Khan, Nassim Soleimanpour and Damon Young. The conversations will be posted at the beginning of each day and can be viewed any time after that.

Artist to Artist: Addressing This Moment brings together artists whose work has been previously presented at UAlbany for conversations about the arts in this time of the coronavirus pandemic, a reckoning on systemic racism and civil unrest. Three segments will air on the Writers Institute YouTube channel in October and November, and each will feature an informal conversation among a visual artist, a writer and a performer, combining powerful voices and compelling artistic practices that speak to current challenges.

The goal of these artist-to-artist conversations is to shine a guiding light on difficult issues, share perspectives that could potentially lead to tangible solutions, and demonstrate the need for respect, empathy, inclusivity and basic humanity, all at the core of creative works of art. The series addresses an urgent need for social and cultural dialogue.

Each pre-recorded segment will be approximately one hour in length and will be available at no charge for use by faculty, and accessible to the campus community and general public. The airing dates and guest artists in each segment are as follows:

Thursday

Baseera Khan is a Brooklyn-based artist and Muslim American who sublimates colonial histories through performance and sculpture in order to map geographies of the future.

Nassim Soleimanpour is an Iranian playwright, theater maker, performer and artistic director of a Berlin-based theater company whose works have been translated into more than 30 languages and performed globally in over 50 countries. His play White Rabbit, Red Rabbit had a nine-month off-Broadway run.

Damon Young is a journalist, humorist and author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, a memoir about surviving in a world where “existing while Black is an extreme sport.” He is also senior editor for The Root and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online magazine, VerySmartBrothas.

Thursday, Nov. 5:

Ping Chong is an American contemporary theater director, choreographer, video and installation artist. Ping Chong + Company produces works addressing the important cultural and civic issues of our times with the greatest level of artistic innovation and social integrity.

Alex Bradley Cohen is a Chicago-based artist employing the language of modernist painting to explore themes such as play, culture, identity, hip-hop and the intimate relationship between artist and sitter.

Ibi Zoboi is the author of the powerful YA novel-in-verse, Punching the Air, about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. The book was co-written with prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five. She is also the author of Pride, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich and the National Book Award finalist American Street. 

Thursday, Nov. 19:

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, a 2013 University at Albany graduate, is the author of the New York Times best-selling short story collection, Friday Black, a satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America. 

Jade Solomon Curtis is a dance artist and choreographer. Curtis’s work integrates classical and African-American vernacular movements with mixed-media and hip hop culture. She collaborates with innovative artists to create socially relevant, multi-discipline work. 

Ashley Teamer is a New Orleans based multimedia artist. Her dynamic wall-works employ painting and collage materials such as WNBA trading cards and a variety of sports imagery to explore Black femininity, athleticism and community.

Support for the Artist to Artist series is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional information on the series and links to the segments can be found at the website Arts at UAlbany.