In this artist lecture, Amina Ross unearths the possibilities of a multi-media practice through an active engagement of turbulence. How might an art practice pull apart the complexities of our current conditions by offering transitory spaces of refuge? How might transformation of an unbearable reality become possible only through “staying with the trouble”*?

Coming into an awareness of a world outside of oneself is a textured terrain. Glissant names this navigation of the other “turbulence”**. Our moment, marked by precarity, is readily named turbulent. An eye of a storm is a place of ephemeral peace. Metaphors of meteorological tumult loop like an R&B refrain. These weather conditions articulate the uncontrollable forces of change that we live within. Through their work, Ross suggests embracing this constant fluctuation, riding the waves of this storm, and being together even when being together is difficult, as strategies for navigating and staying alive through the unknowable.

Featuring interviews with Patricia Nguyen, Ladan Osman, Jozi Zwerdling and Damarni Tyrell and Friends.
* Donna Haraway, Staying with the trouble
** Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation

Amina Ross is an artist whose practice scrutinizes the subtle workings of systems of power and their influence on sense perception and behavior. Ross’s creative output spans video, sound, sculpture, and installation, emphasizing nonlinear storytelling, free association, and plural meaning. Their work has recently been exhibited at MoMA PS1 (Queens, NY), Museum of Contemporary Art, (Chicago, IL), Ruffin Gallery (University of Virginia), Someday (New York, NY), the Hessel Museum of Art (Hudson, NY), the Tang Teaching Museum (Saratoga Springs, NY), and Sentiment (Zurich, CH). Ross’s films have been screened internationally, including at MIXNYC Festival, Tate Modern, The New Museum, and The Walker Art Center. In the summer of 2023, they were a featured artist at the 68th annual Flaherty Film Seminar: Queer World Mending, and in 2024, they were a MacDowell Fellow. Ross was the 2023-2024 Estelle Lebowitz Artist in Residence at Rutgers University. They have recently completed residencies at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Denniston Hill, Fire Island Artist Residency, Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting, Wave Hill, Abrons Art Center, and Harvestworks. They hold a BFA from SAIC and an MFA from Yale School of Art, where they received the Fannie B. Pardee Prize in sculpture. Ross’s work has been featured in critical writings, including an essay by scholar Kelly Chung in Liquid Blackness, Vol. 8, Issue 1 (Duke University Press). Other discussions of their work can be found in The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press at CUNY), Where the Future Came From by Meg Duguid (Soberscove Press), and Support Networks by Abigail Satinsky (University of Chicago Press). An interview with Ross can also be found in BOMB Magazine.

Admission is free.

On Friday, April 10 at 12 p.m, please return for Ruptures, a film screening.

Photo: Carolyne Teston