Alice Wang, Althea Thauberger, Andrea Bowers, Ashley Hunt, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Carlos Motta, Chen Chieh-jen, David Hartt, Deborah Stratman, Donna Conlon, Euan Macdonald, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, João Onofre, Khvay Samnang, Liz Magic Laser, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, Steffani Jemison

This two-day screening presents a selection of short videos by artists whose work critically explores today’s political climate as social injustices intensify on a national and global level. Running concurrent with the talks and workshops at the People’s Summit, Breakout Sessions: Artist Takes provides a space where the creative expressions of artists intersect with the debates and discourses in this Chicago convening.

Many of the artists’ works in this video program use a variety of narrative forms to deepen awareness and unravel hidden layers of oppressive systems that are currently affecting society. Featuring interviews, performances, protests, journeys, and dystopias, they enhance the visibility of people who face, and resist, threats including global warming, deunionization, and mass incarceration. In other works, artists focus on recontextualizing historical artifacts that impact present-day cultural conversations, raising questions about gender equality, government surveillance, and processing collective trauma. Additionally, several of the artists address the experience of navigating our radically changing reality on a broader level, revealing the underlying anxieties of being a human nowadays, as we increasingly encounter neofascist and neoliberal ideologies.

Employing a wide range of formal and conceptual approaches, the artists’ works on view at the People’s Summit directly and indirectly raise compelling questions about current transformations of global society, offering new perceptual modes to comprehend this ever-complex time.

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Organized by Brooke Kellaway, independent curator

Videos vary in length; and will be running on a loop during the following times: Saturday, June 10, 12:30 – 7:00pm; Sunday, June 11, 7:00am – 3:00pm.

Further information on each of the artists’ works can be found in the printed handout in the screening room.