Fresh Art International Cathy Byrd

Today, we take you to St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States of America. Home of the Gateway Arch, an Emblem of Manifest Destiny, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Emblem of Manifest Destiny. St. Louis is nicknamed “‘Mound City”’ because of the number of earthworks built by Indigenous peoples there, before the westward expansion of colonizers conspired to flatten them. Where caves beneath the city sheltered freedom seekers traversing the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Where, from 1959 to 1972—in the span of less than 20 years—residents of the historically Black neighborhoods Mill Creek Valley and Pruitt-Igoe Homes were displaced in the name of urban development and public safety. 
Where, in 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced. Nearly a decade later, in the year 2023, current events reveal that in this city and this state, the sanctity of civil and human rights remains tenuous on every level. 
What role can a public art triennial play in such a troubled context? 
A microcosm of the disruptive forces at play in cities across the United States today, St. Louis offers fertile ground for creative interventions that are healing—restorative in nature.
The civic exhibition Counterpublic takes on the challenge. To prepare for the 2023 event, the triennial’s home team committed to a year of listening sessions with a range of public constituents. A report integrated into the exhibition catalogue outlines local interest in holistic engagement with public memory, commemoration, and acknowledgement; the rematriation of Indigenous land; and reparative futures. In response, for three months, thirty projects animate the urban landscape along six miles of Jefferson Avenue. 
In this episode, we follow that throughway from south to north to share healing elixirs healing we discover at the heart of seven Counterpublic projects along the way. Listen to the ways they honor and amplify strength, beauty, and hope at the core of reemergent cultural histories in St Louis.
 
Story: Cathy Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio courtesy Nokosee Fields, X, Raven Chacon, Stefani Jemison, Griot Museum of African American History, Torkwase Dyson, Mendi and Keith Obadike, SlowDrag audio "Joy and Everything," remixed by K Kudda, and Counterpublic, Mood Unit by  by Blue Dot Sessions
Related Episodes: Model Behavior—New Orleans Art Triennial Inspires Other Cities, Where Art Meets Activism, Unsettled Landscapes at SITE Santa Fe
Related Links: Counterpublic, Fresh VUE: Counterpublic St. Louis 2023

In February 2023, we travel to the United Arab Emirates for the first time. We’re here to witness and celebrate Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. Four years in the making, the exhibition is ambitious and expansive. More than 100 artists from 70 countries are presenting projects in 19 venues across the emirate. 
 
One afternoon, we wander through Sharjah’s heritage area to Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, the personal residence of a local pearl merchant and his family from the mid-19th century until the 1970s. In a small courtyard outside his multi chambered installation, we meet artist Shiraz Bayjoo to talk about how his project engages history—a pervasive theme in this Biennial.
 
The artist shares the storied past of the Indian Ocean and the island archipelagos of Mauritius and Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa. Keep listening to hear the orientalist tropes that he disrupts in Searching for Libertalia, a project that recovers the history of a purported pirate colony founded in the late 17th century.
 
Our conversation with Shiraz Bayjoo reveals one artist’s approach to Thinking Historically in the Present. Searching for Liberatalia materializes a cultural narrative that might come closer than real history to showing us the way through rupture, dislocation, and uncertainty to a place of growth and renewal.

Story: Cathay Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Searching for Libertalia, Sharjah Biennial 15
 
Related Episodes: Sharjah Biennial 15—with Hoor Al Qasimi
 
Related Links: Shiraz Bayjoo, Sharjah Biennial 15, Searching for Libertalia

In February 2023, we travel to the Arab Emirates for the first time. We’re here to witness and celebrate Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. Four years in the making, the exhibition is ambitious and expansive. More than 100 artists from 70 countries are presenting projects in 19 venues across the emirate. Seventy of those projects are new commissions.
 
The memory and influence of Nigerian born art historian, author, educator, and curator Okwui Enwezor is deeply felt, despite his physical absence. The Sharjah Art Foundation had invited Enwezor to curate this iteration of the biennial. He envisioned the exhibition title before his death in 2019.
 
Sharjah Art Foundation Director Hoor Al Qasimi was 22 years old when she met Okwui Enwezor and experienced his non-western curatorial model at documenta 11, in Kassel, Germany. Enwezor’s impactful perspective on postnational hybridity and global modern identity inspired Al Qasimi to lead the Foundation and the Biennial in new directions. 
 
On the 30th anniversary of the Biennial, we sit down with Al Qasimi to talk about the inclusive ethos that we find in the art experience of Thinking Historically in the Present.
 
Story: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
 
Special Audio: Hassan Hajjaj with Mestre Pastel, Open Capoeira Session, Arts Square, Sharjah 
 
Related Episode: New Point of View at Venice Biennale
 
Related Links: Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah Art Foundation, documenta 11, 2nd Johannesburg Biennial
 

Generations of curators, poets, and artists from a world of cultures have found their way across time and space to build communities in Appalachia.

In 2022, members and guests of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art make their way to Kentucky, in the United States. Our first days are packed with urban experiences — museum, gallery, private collection, and studio visits, a symposium — and sunset tours of two outdoor sculpture collections. 
A small group continues the adventure on a road trip that takes us to the far eastern edge of Kentucky. As we cross the state, we learn firsthand the challenges of growing up and producing culture in the region. We bear witness to creative resilience and community in remote spaces and places in Appalachia. We bear witness to creative resilience and community in remote spaces and places where rich stories are told through art, film, music, and theater. 
Voices: Orlando Maiike Gouwenberg, Jessica Bennett Kincaid, Carolina Rubens, Jeff Chapman Crane, Sharman Crane, Kate Handslik
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Music: Danver County by Blue Dot Sessions
Earl Gilmore - This Little Light of Mine, on “From the Depths of my Soul,” 1977, June Appal Recordings
Nimrod Workman & Phyllis Boyens - I am a Travelin' Creature, on “Passing Through the Garden," 1974, June Appal Recordings
Pigmeat Jarret – Look at the People (Little Girl), on “Look at the People,” 1979, June Appal Recordings
Ralph Stanley – I am a Man of Constant Sorrow
Sarah Kate Morgan - Goodbye My Honey I'm Gone, on “Old Tunes & Sad Songs," 2022, self-released
Sparky Rucker – Come on in my Kitchen, on “Cold & Lonesome on a Train,” 1977, June Appal Recordings
Special Sound: Stranger with a Camera, Elizabeth Barrett, 2000 Appalshop; Shift Change, Higher Ground Theater, 2021
Related Episodes: Sounds of Berlin, Cultural Complexity in Miami’s Little Haiti, Key West: Creativity at the End of the Road, Mapping Caribbean Cultural Ecologies
Related Links: Association of International Curators of Contemporary Art, Great Meadows Foundation, Appalshop, June Appal Recordings, Higher Ground Theater, Valley of the Winds Gallery, Mine Portal 31

With six independent curators, we explore a growing trend in the field of contemporary art. We discover that the covid epidemic and a global economic recession have not weakened their resolve to navigate the field on their own terms. Viewing challenges as opportunities, these women are channeling their creative freedom into projects that maximize resources and engage new communities.
What sparked this story: In September 2022, the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art welcomed more than 40 new members during IKT’s annual Congress in Kentucky. Most are independent curators. Listen to find out what motivated this shift.
Featuring: Monique Long, Juste Kostikovaite, Lindsey Cummins, Amethyst Rey Beaver, Sarah Burney, Claire Schneider
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Music: Danver County by Blue Dot Sessions
 
Related Episodes: International Curators Champion Creative Resilience, Curators Consider Climate Change, Curating in a Time of Global Change
Related Links: International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, Great Meadows Foundation, Monique Long, Juste Kostikovaite, Lindsey Cummins, Amethyst Rey Beaver, Sarah Burney, Claire Schneider, KMAC Museum, Benham School House Inn