Art and Science Discussion Series

“Us and the Animal Other”

Friday, January 13, 2017 at 6:30 PM

Admission $5

Moderator: Aviva Rahmani

Panelists: Reiko Matsuda Goodwin, Susan Hoenig, Aimee Morgana, Hope Sandrow

OffLINE at CENTRAL BOOKING hosts the latest panel in our Art & Science Discussion Series on Friday, January 13, 2017 at 6:30 pm. “Us and the Animal Other” is a panel discussion on the art and science of endangered species accompanying the “In Harm’s Way” exhibition. In the time of the sixth extinction, what does segregating other species into domesticated, caged and “wild” mean? Do our relationships to endangered animals predict our own future survival? Dr. Aviva Rahmani, whose ecological artwork, The Blued Trees Symphony, has been challenging the habitat destruction of natural gas pipelines worldwide, will moderate this panel on endangered animal species. Participants will include the work of three additional artists who each work with birds, Susan Hoenig, Aimee Morgana and Hope Sandrow, to question and observe our relationships to domestication, and wildness, and Dr. Reiko Matsuda Goodwin, an animal behavioral scientist working with primates.

Reiko Matsuda Goodwin is an adjunct professor in biological anthropology at Fordham University, a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, a member of the Conservation Committee of the International Primatological Society, and an author of a number of scholarly publications. She has years of experience conducting conservation research on critically endangered primates such as the white-thighed colobus and the red-bellied guenon and educating local practitioners in West Africa. She also runs the Guenon Conservation Community on Facebook.

Susan Hoenig is an ecological sculptor and painter. She teaches at the Arts Council of Princeton and in Art Out-Reach Programs. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Hoenig works at the Featherbed Lane Bird Banding Station in the Sourland Mountains of New Jersey. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City and her BA from Bennington College in Vermont.

Aimee Morgana is an artist and researcher in interspecies communication, working with parrots. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Royal Society of Arts in London, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Whitney Biennial. She has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Times of London.

Aviva Rahmani holds a PhD from Plymouth University, UK, is an Affiliate with INSTAAR, University of Colorado at Boulder, and a visiting professor at Stony Brook University. Her project, The Blued Trees Symphony was awarded a 2016 Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Rahmani’s “Trigger Points/ Tipping Points” project on global warming premiered at the 2007 Venice Biennale, as part of Gulf to Gulf (2009- present), a NYFA sponsored webcast project accessed from 85 countries.

Conceptual artist Hope Sandrow‘s multidisciplinary practice is her ‘way’ of life. Public engagement informs and directs her artistic vision. Sandrow’s ongoing project open air studio spacetime sited in and around her own “backyard” relates to one in Silanggana, Bali and another in Komodo Island. As part of “The Fabric of Time and Space”, a commission from Art in Embassies. Works included in public collections such as MET, MOMA, Whitney and Corcoran; magazines including Artforum; New York Times and Sculpture.