The scientific progress of the 20th and 21st centuries has seen the technofuture become the technopresent with bewildering rapidity. It has also presented a new role to science fiction: not just as a tool of speculation, but as a means to navigate cultural difference, political injustice, and social inequality, as well as a rich field for artistic creativity.
Featuring AMERICAN ARTIST, Director and CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Sandra Jackson-Dumont and Arianna Nourse, writer, curator and Executive Producer of In the Black Fantastic, this conversation considers the impact of science fiction on today’s filmic and artistic production. The panel is moderated by Chon A. Noriega, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television and curator of PST ART’s Science Fiction Against the Margins.
The talk will take place in the VIP Hub inside The Beverly Hills Hotel at Polo Private Lounge.
Pastries with coffee and tea service will be available from 9:30am.
The talk will start at 10am followed by a Q&A.
Booking is essential as capacity is limited.
Monday, September 16
9:30am – 11:00am (conversation begins at 10am)
AMERICAN ARTIST makes thought experiments that mine the history of technology, race, and knowledge production, beginning with their legal name change in 2013. Their artwork primarily takes the form of sculpture, software, and video. Artist is a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in Visual Art and a Creative Capital grantee. They are a former resident of Smack Mellon, Red Bull Arts Detroit, Abrons Art Center, Recess, EYEBEAM, Pioneer Works, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. They have exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art; Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; and Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul. Their work has been featured in New York Times, Cultured, Artforum, and Art in America. Artist is a former co-director of the School for Poetic Computation and a faculty at Yale.
Curator, author, educator, administrator, and public advocate for reimagining the role of art museums in society, Sandra Jackson-Dumont has served as Director and Chief Executive Officer of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art since January 2020. She oversees all aspects of the fast-developing institution, including operational affairs and the realization of robust curatorial, learning, and engagement experiences and content. Throughout her roles with some of the country’s most renowned museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and now the Lucas Museum, she has collaborated extensively with living artists, communities, creatives, and historical materials. Her work catalyzes the presence of increasingly dynamic and diverse audiences in cultural spaces while exploring issues of relevance.
Chon Noriega is Distinguished Professor at UCLA. His research explores Latinx media, visual, and performing arts through their aesthetic, social, and institutional histories. He is author or editor of 21 books. His recent essays explore diaspora and the modern, 1960s and 1970s Latinx photography, and performative-portraiture in 1980s Cuban American art. Noriega is active in the archival preservation of film and the arts, including recovery of the first Chicano-directed feature film, Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive!, which is now listed on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. He is currently working on the preservation and digitization of over 60 films and videos since the 1950s by destructivist artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz. Noriega has curated and co-curated over 30 museum exhibitions and film series, including Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement, Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits, and Home—So Different, So Appealing. Noriega was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2021-22, and currently serves as a Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Latinx Affairs at UCLA.
Arianna Nourse is an internationally-engaged, independent cultural producer, writer and curator. Her practice aims to broaden our understanding and expectations around race, hybridity and self-construction. After graduating from Columbia University, Nourse began her career at Phillips auction house in New York, where she became the company’s first Black specialist in contemporary art and photography. She now partners with leading artists and collectors to develop innovative exhibitions, collections, and wider projects from conception to finissage. Long committed to artists of the African diasporas, she has placed and championed works by Alberta Whittle, Janiva Ellis, Igshaan Adams, Vivian E Browne, Leyla Faye, Sedrick Chisom, Qualeasha Wood, Gordon Parks, and many others. She is currently executive producer of In the Black Fantastic, a mythology-tinged documentary by Ekow Eshun and julianknxx due for release in 2025. Nourse is a member of Entre Nous, an invitational association of Black female art dealers founded by White Cube’s Courtney Willis Blair; and sits on the committee of Frieze fair’s Frieze 91 in London. She is the daughter of two artists; the mother of two children; and loves speculative fiction.
