Southland Institute

Discussions in Exhibitions
Public Works
Saturday, November 18, 2pm
Art in the Park
5568 Via Marisol Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90042

After an extended hiatus, Discussions in Exhibitions in the Southland enthusiastically returns with a gathering to engage David Weldzius’s Public Works in a public park during public hours. This is an in-person event.

Access Notes:
Building: Art in the Park is a one-floor structure that is wheelchair accessible
Restroom: Accessible public restrooms located both inside venue and nearby in Hermon Park
Seating: Available on request
Ventilation / Air: The space is a single, indoor room with several open doors and windows providing ventilation during gallery hours.

With the recent shuttering of a local, long-standing Contemporary Art Journal and the ousting of an Editor-in-Chief at another Forum, what comes next for the art periodical publication seems yet to be written. Discussions in Exhibitions began as an occasion to explore alternatives to a print-centric model of cultural criticism which places distance between the critical reflections of exhibitions, often derived from a singular viewpoint, and the public who receive these reflections as record at some remove, after the fact. Discussions continues to emphasize the possibility of discursive public-ation begins through public action.

Working with what's at hand, and identifying and proposing that which is needed but absent, how can we use the tools of design and typography to reveal infrastructure and increase access to the sites that comprise our physical and virtual lives?

In a 2-day online workshop facilitated by Southland Institute founder and co-director Joe Potts, occurring over two consecutive Saturdays as part of the .tf typography festival, participants will explore this question and propose a series of responses, to be published after the workshop.

This workshop is $60 and is offered as an add-on supplement to the Inscript Experimental Type Festival (which runs 10/4-10/8 and includes an excellent lineup of presenters). In order to attend the workshop you must purchase tickets to both the festival and the workshop. More info and links at linktr.ee in bio to purchase tickets to the festival ($30) and workshop ($60).

Last chance to register for tomorrow’s (4/19) Cyberfeminism Index event at Cal State LA, presented by Southland Institute and Cal State LA. Free and open to the public, Link to register in instagram bio and on Southland Institute website. Directions and campus map have been emailed to those who registered already, will be emailed tomorrow mid-day to anyone signing up between now and then.

Suggested Southland area in-person event today (Friday 4/14) at noon at CalState LA, Jeron Braxton will be presenting as part of CSULA Department of Art’s visiting artist lecture series.

Jeron Braxton is a self-taught artist and filmmaker. He has received widespread recognition and awards for his films, which include Oxytocin, Octane, and Glucose, which won the Short Film Jury Award for Animation at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, and the show Daytime Noir on FX+.

His work has been featured on Adult Swim as well as in film festivals such as Pictoplasma, Sundance, and SXSW.

Talk will be in room ASCB 132 (Rosser Hall) (building 27B on the campus map).

Next Weds April 19 at 5pm at Cal State LA:
Southland Institute and Cal State LA Department of Art present a performative reading and panel discussion of CYBERFEMINISM INDEX with Mindy Seu, in conversation with Dorothy Santos, A.M. Darke, Cesia Dominguez, and Anika Sarin. Free and open to the public. Link to register in bio.

The internet is not only a network of cables, servers, and computers. It is an environment that shapes and is shaped by its inhabitants and their use. Edited by designer, professor, and researcher Mindy Seu, CYBERFEMINISM INDEX includes more than 700 short entries of radical techno-critical activism, academic articles, hackerspaces, software education, net art, and more. Both a vital introduction for laypeople and a robust resource guide for educators, CYBERFEMINISM INDEX -- an anti-canon, of sorts -- celebrates and makes visible cyberfeminism's long-ignored origins and its expansive legacy.

This public event, co-sponsored by Southland Institute and CalState LA Department of Art is part of an international book tour and includes a performative reading from the book by Mindy Seu, followed by a discussion with several of the books' contributors and local practitioners.

This event will take place in the USU Theatre on the Cal State LA campus, and is free and open to the public, with registration (in bio). An email will be sent out with parking instructions and directions to the theatre.

Immutable: Designing History
with Chris Lee

Thursday, March 16, 5pm PDT on zoom. Link to register in bio.

Immutable: Designing History is a new book that outlines a thematic genealogy of the document -- graphic design's most banal genre -- and its entanglement with statecraft and colonialism/ity. This is framed as a roughly 5,000 year chronology imbricating the developments of money and writing, from Mesopotamian clay tablets to distributed blockchain ledgers. Immutability figures as a design imperative and hermeneutic for considering securitization techniques, material, technological, homicidal, administrative, against the entropy of a document's movement through space, time and dispute.

An overview presentation of the book will set the stage for a developing discussion. This event invites speculation and debate on the implications of centering the document in the narration of graphic design history on how we might think about who the designer is and what the designer does. Through the conversation, the hope is also to explore possibilities for challenging some of our assumptions as students, educators, researchers, and practitioners, as a starting point to imagining other ways of studying, and doing design.

--

Chris Lee () is a graphic designer and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a graduate of OCADU and the Sandberg Instituut. His research/studio practice explores graphic design's entanglement with capitalism and colonialism/ity through the banal genre of the document. He is also currently developing a typographical project that narrates the oscillating status of Asians between the "model minority" and "yellow peril" as a function of the consolidation of Euro-American settler identity. Chris is an Assistant Professor in the Undergraduate Communications Design Department at the Pratt Institute.

New poster fresh off the presses for Cal State LA’s MFA in Art, a unique and exciting public MFA program in the Southland, which is currently growing and gaining momentum with a group of new faculty including Southland Institute founder Joe Potts.

For anyone interested in an affordable, accredited, interdisciplinary, self-directed MFA program that can be attended part-time or full-time, and completed on your own timeline, the MFA in Art at Cal State LA is very much worth considering.

The degree is a MFA in Art, with options in either design (graphic design / visual communication, animation) or studio arts (drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, new genres).

Applications for 2023-2024 academic year (beginning in Sept) are due soon, on 2/15.

If you’d like more information, specifically regarding the design option, dm here or send an email to [email protected] or [email protected].

Additionally, and on a related note, this April there will also be the first official CSULA + Southland Institute collaboration: a reading and panel discussion as one of the stops on Mindy Seu’s CYBERFEMINISM INDEX book tour. Stay tuned for further info!

The Southland Institute presents a free 2-day public workshop:

“The City Speaks”

with Stephen Serrato and River Jukes-Hudson from .

(Space is limited and registration is required. email [email protected] if you would like to attend.)

For two consecutive Saturday sessions beginning next Saturday (November 12), this multi-day workshop will begin and end with a walking / rolling tour through one of our deeply layered, beloved LA neighborhoods.

We will observe, ask, listen, record. We will explore the public use of language in interior and exterior spaces, identify tones of voice, visual signals, and other potentially overlooked aspects of the area and consider how to respond.

The workshop will be accessible to multiple ways of navigating Los Angeles neighborhoods. If you have particular access needs or requests, please let us know.

If interested in participating, send an email to [email protected] with the subject "the city speaks workshop" with a couple of sentences telling us a bit about yourself, and we will follow up with registration information.

--

ELLA is a woman and minority-owned design studio based in Los Angeles, California run by Stephen Serrato and River Jukes-Hudson. We bring multiple perspectives to the table for every project. We share a sense of responsibility for what we put into the world. Creative research plays a major role in our process. Mutual trust between us and our clients is essential. We prioritize marginalized voices. We come with many questions, and conversations lead us toward the truest solution. We embrace complexity and contradiction. Logic appeals to us -- so does humor and humility. Every project is an opportunity for growth.

Both partners teach graduate and undergraduate Typography courses at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. We also created Design Atlas, an educational tool for teachers, students and designers with the aim of promoting discussion and further understanding of basic typography and graphic design principles.

upcoming:
ONE-DAY ONLINE ZOOM WORKSHOP

Experiments in Broadcasting with OBS
(Open Broadcaster Software)
with Jeremiah Chiu

Saturday, October 15 10am-noon PDT

In the earliest months of the pandemic, artists and musicians sought alternative modes of exhibition and performance to maintain their livelihoods in a time when public gathering was restricted. In April 2020, an influx of live-streaming programming via Twitch, IG Live, Youtube, etc... foregrounded experimental broadcasts as a primary way to engage in the public sphere -- much of this using OBS. In the era of the smartphone -- similar to the camcorder boom of the mid-eighties -- public access broadcasting is a fixture of contemporary culture.

In this workshop, Jeremiah Chiu will present his work as a live-streaming facilitator, curator, and performer and lead participants through a demonstration of OBS. Participants do not need any prior experience or knowledge of OBS or any live-streaming. However, participants should have access to a computer or smartphone and download OBS (or Streamlabs OBS for mobile) prior to the workshop.

This workshop is well-suited for anyone interested in collaborative tools and experimental broadcasts for live-streaming platforms. Bring your questions!

If interested in participating, send an email to [email protected] with the subject "Experiments in Broadcasting workshop" with a couple of sentences telling us a bit about yourself, and we will follow up with registration information.

--

JEREMIAH CHIU is Los Angeles-based artist, graphic designer, musician, educator, and community organizer.

Jeremiah's current practice, Some All None, works at the intersection of art, music, technology, and publishing.
He is a full-time Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design, faculty member at Art Center College of Design, and a resident DJ at Dublab. His work has been exhibited/performed at The Getty Center, LACMA, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, amongst others.

This Fall, we are continuing to offer the curricular initiative 1:1, which gives enrolled participants the opportunity to curate a term of intensive, personal study composed of individual dialogs with the speakers, lecturers, course leaders, and workshop facilitators who have contributed to the actualization of the Southland Institute.

This initiative reflects a commitment to recognizing the importance of supporting moments when the articulation of creative endeavors meets the instability of uncertain times. Within this structure, projects, ideas, and questions which have been developing in isolation are granted a range of discursive occasions in which they can be approached and considered at the human scale of a dialog. This fall term offers multiple tiers of enrollment in 1:1, consisting of a term of 6 or 3 distinct dialogs along with access to ongoing advisory support.

This structure is intended to function either as a self-standing educational offering in support of individually prompted study, or as a supplement to adjacent learning / life endeavors a person is currently involved in. It is designed to accommodate a wide range of time commitments and obligations, and to comprise an opportunity to develop ideas / projects / lines of inquiry, within, between, and in relation to the realities of work / family / life / etc.

Fall 2022 discussants include:

Abigail Raphael Collins
Adam Feldmeth
Aurora Tang
Carmen Amengual
Chang Yuchen
Chris Lee
David Weldzius
Dina Abdulkarim
Edie Fake
Erin Segal
Fiona Connor
Ignacio Perez Meruane
James Goggin
Janna Ireland
Joe Potts
Julie Cho
Laura Coombs
Lauren Williams
Masato Nakada
Mindy Seu
Neil Doshi
Nicole Killian
Niloufar Emamifar
Ramon Tejada
Shannon Finnegan
Silas Munro
Steven Chodoriwsky

Participation in 1:1 is by application, including a proposal for what will be discussed throughout the term.

additional information at https://southland.institute/1_1.html