We met at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where we earned MFA degrees. Half way through the second semester of our program, the school’s campus was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and just like that, our Los Angeles community was torn away. We are making this collaborative publication with a small grant from the REEF Artist Residency as a way to mark this unprecedented time, rebuild our community, and to begin to think about these events in a new way.
Amanda Bauer is an interdisciplinary artist, working with lens-based media, objects, installation and writing. Inspired by the truths and myths of social order, her work grapples with the complexities of interpersonal connection and documents seen and unseen challenges inherent within relationships. Leveraging memory, humor, history and experience, she explores landscapes, objects and ideologies that mark personal and collective connections through time.
Ruoyi Shi is an interdisciplinary artist working with objects, writings, performances, and video installations. Inspired by folklore, oral history, mythology, and personal memory, she combines humor and fiction to construct her own poetic narratives. Through her practice, Ruoyi plays a world-building game with the figures and creatures she invents. She also invites audiences to participate in her alternative reality.
COLLABORATORS
We are looking forward to working with Zoe Strauss, who will be part of the jurying and editing processes.
Zoe Strauss is an American photographer and a nominee member of Magnum Photos. She uses Philadelphia as a primary setting and subject for her work. In 2006 her work was included in the Whitney Biennial and her solo exhibition, Ramp Project: Zoe Strauss, was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. In 2012 a mid-career retrospective, Zoe Strauss: 10 Years, was shown at Philadelphia Museum of Art, accompanied in Philadelphia by a display of 54 billboards showing her photographs, and at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Strauss received a Seedling Award from the Leeway Foundation in 2002, a Pew Fellowship in 2005, a USA Gund Fellowship and a grant by United States Artists in 2007, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.
We are in the process of inviting other artists to join us in other capacities. We will share more as we confirm participation from our other potential collaborators.