Thursday, March 25, 2010, 5:30pm  |  Center for Creative Photography 108

This lecture will present the conceptual roots and future paths of two large bodies of art, science and technology-related works that Marko Peljhan has been developing in collaborations since the early 2000s, focusing on the Arctic Perspective Initiative and its Makrolab roots and the polar m [mirrored] project. The Arctic Perspective Initiative (API) is a non-profit, international group of individuals and organizations, whose goal is to promote the creation of open authoring, communications and dissemination infrastructures for the circumpolar region. Its aim is to work with, learn from, and empower the North and Arctic Peoples through open source technologies and applied education and training.

Liz Cohen’s projects create parameters for experiences in which she negotiates her relationships within groups where she does not have the defining characteristic for membership. As her work changes she remains interested in groups of men, radical transformation, and in-between-ness.

Cohen spent four years performing her investigations for CANAL, a series of photographs and performances about a group of transgender sex workers along the fringe of the Panama Canal. The transgender sex worker’s bodies become metaphors for Panama’s geography and history. She learned to transform her appearance and took on the personas of different sex workers she had met for a series of performances.

With BODYWORK, she shifted her focus toward the flexibilities of group membership in the lowrider world and became a member of a group of men who do the customizing work on these cars. Bodywork is the attempt to transform an East German car into an American car by means of hydraulic technology. Simultaneously, Cohen converted her own body into one worthy of a car-show bikini model.

Liz Cohen’s work has been shown internationally including exhibitions at Färgfabriken (Stockholm), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Galerie Laurent Godin (Paris), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Rubin Center (El Paso).

Cohen is the Artist-in-Residence/Head of Photography at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

She is represented by Galerie Laurent Godin (Paris).

Transculturations: Cultural Hybridity in American Art | VASE 2009-2010