From experimental restaurants to performative lectures, from social networks to public protests, cultural practices that focus on group work are gaining visibility. F**king Up is a conversation series that asks artists, educators and curators to speak openly about struggles and desires in collaboration, documentation, narration and committment. Join these free public conversations at Eyebeam on the third Wednesday of the month, from March through June.
F**king Up is organized by OurGoods, A Blade of Grass and Eyebeam Art & Technology Center.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Hương Ngô is an artist and educator, born in Hong Kong, and based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work, often collaborative and performance-based, has been supported by the New Museum, Rhizome, LMCC, The Kitchen, EFA Project Space, Tate Modern, Vox Populi, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Museum in Prague. She is a part of the collective Fantastic Futures, collaborates with the Bureau of False Friends, is a recent Whitney Independent Study Program Fellow, and earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upcoming works can be viewed at Smackmellon (Brooklyn), Provisions Library (George Mason University), and Quartair (The Hague).
Christopher Robbins works on the uneasy cusp of public art and community action, creating sculptural interventions in the daily lives of strangers. He uses heavy material demands and a carefully twisted work-process to craft awkwardly intimate social collaborations. He built his own hut out of mud and sticks and lived in it while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa, spoke at a United Nations conference about his cross-cultural digital arts and education work in the South Pacific, and has lived and worked in London, Tokyo, West Africa, the Fiji Islands, and former Yugoslavia. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial of Architecture, ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art, New Museum Festival of Ideas, the National Museum of Wales, Nikolaj Kunsthallen/Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, and been awarded residencies or fellowships from Skowhegan, MacDowell Colony, Haystack, Penland and Anderson Ranch, among others. The Ghana ThinkTank, which he co-founded in 2006, was awarded a Creative Capital Grant in 2013.
Kerry Downey (born 1979, Florida) is an interdisciplinary teaching artist based in New York. She holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Hunter College. Downey is a current fellow in the Queer/Art/Mentorship program. Her work has recently been exhibited at Ramapo College Berrie Art Center, the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Invisible Dog, A.I.R. gallery, and The Bronx River Arts Center. Recent video screenings have taken place at Horton Gallery and Spectacle Theatre. Downey’s work has been highlighted in The Brooklyn Rail, The Village Voice, and The Believer. Her curatorial work has been discussed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The London Sunday Times. In 2009, she was nominated for Joan Mitchell Foundation’s M.F.A. Grant Program for Sculpture. She currently teaches at the Museum of Modern Art and Hunter College.
