Daisy Chain

MAPPING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ARTISTS, THEIR IDEAS AND CREATIVE WORK

In this time of reentry, when we are cautiously emerging from a year in isolation and also merging back into action at breakneck speed, our new video zine offers the opportunity for contemplation in its assemblage of artists, art and ideas.

“Daisy Chain” is a compilation of short vignettes documenting the candid and illuminating perspectives of nine national and regional artists as the world opens back up. The title refers to the traditional string of daisies threaded together by their stems, as well as the contemporary wiring scheme of the same name used in electronics and engineering. It was released at noon June 30 via the Institute’s YouTube channel.

“‘Daisy Chain’ explores the ties that bind us, the past and the future, and the loose ends,” said Amanda Krugliak, curator of the Institute for the Humanities. “Perhaps as important, it alludes to surprising and new combinations, and a renewed capacity to find joy.”

For the project, which is 35 minutes long, the Institute’s curator interviews artists with diverse experiences, perspectives and practices. She asked each of them the same series of questions: How do you feel you are emerging from the past year? What kind of world are you trying to build for the future? How are you thinking about responsiveness and responsibility? Are there any creative strategies you have identified moving forward?

The artists’ answers—along with images of their work—have been strung together visually in one video, one artist connecting to another in sequence. The video was co-produced and edited by gallery project coordinator Juliet Hinely.

“This may be my favorite project of the year,” said Krugliak, who launched “House Calls” at the outset of the pandemic, a streaming series that offered virtual studio visits with artists. “So much has happened over the last year and their responses go against the rhetoric of the day, really getting at the heart of the matter from so many perspectives. The artists talk candidly about working through the past year, while also discussing the intersection of ideas surrounding systemic racism, health and our responsibilities to one another.”

Participating artists include Ruth Leonela Buentello (San Antonio), Abigail DeVille (New York City), Hubert Massey (Detroit), Shanna Merola (Hamtramck, Michigan), Scott Northrup (Detroit/ Dearborn, Michigan) David Opdyke (New York City), Shani Peters (New Orleans), Sheida Soleimani (Providence, Rhode Island) and Jeffrey Augustine Songco (Grand Rapids, Michigan).

This project was supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

WATCH ME WORK—PORTRAITS OF SELF Sydney G. James

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Detroit-based visual artist Sydney G. James earned her BFA at the College for Creative Studies and began her career as an art director in advertising. In 2004 she moved to Los Angeles to work as a visual artist in the film and television industry and earned her master’s degree in secondary education. Since returning to Detroit in 2011, James has become a leading creative voice in Southeast Michigan. The gender positioning of the black woman in America as “last” or “least among others” in society has been the central theme in her work recently. James has displayed her art at MOCAD, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Inner State Gallery, and PLAYGROUND DETROIT, among others. She has completed public murals in Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Pow Wow Hawaii, Pow Wow Long Beach, Pow Wow Worcester, and Accra, Ghana. Her mural of Malice Green, The Malice Green Mural Monument, appears on the side of the Hamilton-Tucker Gallery on the border of Detroit and Hamtramck. Most recently, she completed The Girl with the D Earring, a mural on the Chroma Building in Detroit. James is the recipient of the 2017 Kresge Fellowship award.

ABOUT THE INSTALLATION: Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self is an entirely new series of paintings by artist Sydney G. James, completed during her residency at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities. The paintings in this exhibition reposition the narrative of black women’s visibility and value, honoring the individual and collective contributions and labors of Black women, persistent through the pandemics, through police violence, and whether seen or unseen. As part of her artist residency, James completed a mural titled Sarah the Whatevershechoosestobe-(h)er on the first floor of the Modern Languages Building. She also led workshops with youth in Michigan juvenile justice facilities, in collaboration with the Youth Arts Alliance, and met with students from the Stamps School of Art & Design.

Sydney G. James works on her mural Sarah the Whatevershechoosestobe-(h)er in the Modern Languages Building.

RELATED EVENTS: Watch Me Work — Portraits of Self Virtual Reception & Film Premiere: Sydney James in conversation with writer Scheherazade Washington Parrish and the premiere of the short documentary The Girl With the D Earring.

This project was supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. DAISY CHAIN

ABOUT THE PROJECT: A series of short vignettes in video form documenting the candid and illuminating perspectives of 9 national and regional artists.

See page 20 for more information.

Ava Ansari performs THE G—RAY AREA in the For Your Eyes Only exhibition space. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY Yasmine Nasser Diaz

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice weaves between culture, class, gender, religion, and family. She uses mixed media collage, immersive installation, fiber etching, and video to juxtapose discordant cultural references and to explore the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. Diaz is interested in complicated narratives of thirdculture identity and the precarious spaces of invisibility and hyper-visibility where they often reside. Born and raised in Chicago to parents who immigrated from the rural highlands of southern Yemen, her work is often rooted in personal histories and competing cultural values.

Diaz has exhibited and performed at spaces including the Brava Theater in San Francisco, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, and the Torrance Art Museum. She is a recipient of the Harpo Visual Artists Grant and the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship and has works included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The University of California Los Angeles, and the Arab American National Museum. Her work has been featured in HyperAllergic, Artillery Magazine, and Kolaj Magazine. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: For Your Eyes Only is the latest iteration of Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom installation. At first glance, the constructed space is a shimmering homage to the bedroom disco— a sanctuary for uninhibited dance and selfexpression. It has also become the setting from which many personal videos are made and shared widely on social media, where platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have blurred the boundary between public and private. Projected into the space is a montage of casual videos shared by female-identifying and non-binary persons of SWANA* origin dancing solo in their rooms. To some, the videos may seem innocent and innocuous, but they can also be seen as acts of defiance that assert the autonomy of bodies that have been surveilled, scrutinized, and censored throughout history. Alongside these intimate moments is a separate reel showing political figures and protest movements from the SWANA region. The images demonstrate the fluctuating attitudes and regulations impacting human rights and freedoms based on gender, and exemplify how—whether we are physically at a protest or sharing our physicality in virtual spaces—our bodies are engaged in some level of risk. *Southwest Asian/North African

RELATED EVENTS: THE G—RAY AREA: performances by Ava Ansari intended to activate the space and bring to life the installation by further exploring the positioning of the body and the viewer.