Thu
Aug 1, 2019
4:30 am
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6:00 am
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About

As social media has become an integral tool in the enabling of various levels of performativity digitally, these gestures significantly impact how individuals capture their experiences, and present their lives to the world. Enter the Dignity Image. A term coined by American Artist, a dignity image is a personal image that is deliberately withheld from social media circulation.

Join us on August 1st for a conversation with American Artist the creator of the exhibition Dignity Images: Bayview-Hunters Point in conversation with the exhibition's co-curator Larry Ossei-Mensah as they discuss a number of themes related to the show including personal agency, liberation, and digital archiving, while exploring in depth the idea of the dignity image as it relates to the South San Francisco Neighborhood of  Bayview-Hunters Point.  Genevieve Leighton-Armah and Senait Hailemariam of BAYCAT will join in to provide their perspective on partnering on the exhibition. The conversation will be moderated by Mark Sabb, Senior Director of Innovation and Engagement at MoAD.

This program will include a wine reception.

American Artist (b. 1989 Altadena, CA) is an alumnus of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. They earned their M.F.A. from Parsons, The New School and their B.F.A. from California Polytechnic University Pomona. Solo exhibitions include Black Gooey Universe, HOUSING, Brooklyn, NY (2018); and My Blue Window, Queens Museum, NY (forthcoming).

They have participated in group exhibitions such as: Parallels and Peripheries, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI (2019); ICONICITY, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Stony Brook University, NY (2019); A Wild Ass Beyond: ApocalypseRN, Performance Space New York, NY (2018); Geographies of Imagination, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (2018); I Was Raised on the Internet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL (2018); Screenscapes, Postmasters, New York, NY (2018); Lack of Location is My Location, Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn, NY (2017); and Off Pink, The Kitchen, New York, NY (2015) among others.

Artist is currently a resident at Abrons Art Center and Pioneer Works and a 2018-2019 recipient of the Queens Museum Jerome Foundation Fellowship. They are the co-founder of the arts and politics publication unbag and have published writing in The New Inquiry and New Criticals. They live and work in Brooklyn, NY.

Larry Ossei-Mensah, MOCAD’s Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator uses contemporary art as a vehicle to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. The Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic has organized exhibitions and programs at commercial and nonprofit spaces around the globe from New York City to Rome in addition to documenting cultural happenings featuring the most dynamic visual artists working today such as Derrick Adams, Mickalene Thomas, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Federico Solmi, and Kehinde Wiley.

Ossei-Mensah is also the co-founder of ARTNOIR a global collective of culturalists who design multimodal experiences aimed to engage this generation’s dynamic and diverse creative class. Ossei-Mensah is a contributor to the first ever Ghanaian Pavilion for the 2019 Venice Biennial with an essay on the work of visual artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Ossei-Mensah is also the recent recipient of the Warhol Foundation grant for $50K for his current exhibition at MOAD in San Francisco entitled Coffee, Rhum, Sugar, Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox co-curated with Dexter Wimberly.  

Fall 2019, Ossei-Mensah will be curating his second exhibition at the Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator at MOCAD Crossing Night with Josh Ginsburg from the A4 Foundation and Jova Lynne, Ford Curatorial Fellow at MOCAD. Additionally, he will be curating his first exhibition as a Guest Curator to launch the New Rudin Family  Gallery at BAM in Brooklyn, NYC. Ossei-Mensah has had profiles in such publications like the NY Times, Artsy, and Cultured Magazine to name a few. Follow him on Instagram/Twitter at @youngglobal.

Genevieve Leighton-Armah is a first generation, Bay Area Native, a ten-year San Francisco resident and a longtime ally and supporter of historically black neighborhoods and people of color. She is an Academy Coordinator by trade at the Bayview Hunters Point Center of Arts and Technology (BAYCAT). Her passion for uplifting brown people towards self sufficiency is an on-going project she considers her life work.

Senait Hailemariam is a passionate producer, panel moderator and interviewer who joined the media industry with one goal: to help bring diversity to the stories we tell. As Creative Producer at BAYCAT Studio, Senait helps community organizations, small businesses, and local agencies tell their stories.

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