The Urgency of the Arts Assembly: I WANT YOU TO SPEAK TO ME URGENTLY

Speaker Bios

Chus Martínez is head of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel. She was the expedition leader of The Current, a project initiated by TBA21–Academy (2018–2020) and from 2021 she is the artistic director of Ocean Space, Venice, a space initiated by TBA21–Academy. The Current is also the inspiration behind Art is Ocean, a series of seminars and conferences held at the Institute Art Gender Nature which examines the role of artists in the conception of a new experience of nature. At the Institute Art Gender Nature she is currently leading the research project The Womxn’s Factor, on the role of education in enhancing women’s equality in the arts. 

Introduced by Arabel Lebrusan

Hannah Chalew is an artist, educator and environmental activist raised and currently working in New Orleans. Her artwork explores what it means to live in a time of global warming with a collective uncertain future, and specifically what that means for those of us living in Southern Louisiana. Her practice explores the historical legacies that got us here to help imagine new possibilities for a livable future. Since 2018, she has sought to divest her studio practice from fossil fuels as much as possible through the materials she uses: choosing recycled, free, and sustainable materials; by powering her artworks and studio practice with renewable resources like solar power and rain-water harvesting; and by traveling by bike to and from my studio. She received her BA from Brandeis University in 2009, and her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016. Chalew has exhibited widely around New Orleans and has shown around the country at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Bronx, NY; Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Dieu Donné, New York, NY; Asheville Museum of Art, Asheville, NC, and other venues. Her work is held in the collections of the City of New Orleans and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She recently received a Monroe Research Fellowship from Tulane University to create ink from fossil fuel pollution in collaboration with fence-line communities in Southern Louisiana. She also received a Puffin Foundation Grant and Platforms Grant to support this project. She is the 2022 South Arts Southern Prize winner as well as the South Arts Louisiana State Fellow.

Introduced by Alexandra Young

Celia Pym is an artist living and working in London. She has been exploring damage and repair in textiles since 2007. Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, she has extensive experience with the spectrum and stories of damage, from small moth holes to larger accidents with fire. Her work has been exhibited most recently in Empathy for People, Empathy for Things, UH Arts+Culture (2022), Gorgeous Nothings, Bartha Contemporary (2022), Eternally Yours, Somerset House, London, (2022), Say Less, Herald St, London (2022) Radical Acts: Harewood Biennial 2022, Leeds, (2022), Keep Being Amazing, Firstsite, Colchester, Essex (2022) and On Happiness: Joy + Tranquillity, Wellcome Collection, London (2021). Pym was shortlisted for the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize and the inaugural Loewe Craft Prize in 2017. Her work is held in the Musée National de Monaco and Crafts Council UK collections. She is an Associate Lecturer in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in London and has just published her first book – On Mending: stories of damage and repair with Quickthorn Press. 

Introduced by Leonie Cameron