16 July 2014 7pm

We are delighted to announce that Monika Szewczyk is the inaugural guest of our fORUM critical conversation series, a monthly series of talks, lectures, interviews, screenings and performances at Mercer Union.

Monika Szewczyk on “how to hold a conversation”

Conversation is a somewhat fragile thing. It is something that we forge, but also something that is very difficult to grasp, hold on to, control, even as its effects are visceral and lasting. Yet, despite or perhaps because of this fragility, an abstract good called ‘the conversation’ is increasingly offered for our consumption. How many times have we heard BBC or CNN or CBC imploring: “join the global conversation!”  While not wanting to fall into the trap of fetishizing ‘the global conversation’ or for that matter the local one, it may be interesting to consider how difficult it is to have a good conversation in these hyper-connected and über-communicative times. Drawing on ongoing research and experience, Monika Szewczyk shares some thoughts on the matter and some slides, proposing tangibility as the crux of the matter. If in the process, a conversation unfolds at Mercer Union…

All welcome, admission is free.

Monika Szewczyk is the Visual Arts Program Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago. Previously, she was Head of Publications at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, where she (co)edited more than twenty publications ranging from monographs, through artists’ books to critical readers. Her curatorial career began at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia and the Belkin Satellite in downtown Vancouver, and developed at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Throughout, she has been teaching at art academies including Emily Carr University in Vancouver, the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, the Bergen National Academy of the Arts and currently at the University of Chicago. Szewczyk’s writing has appeared in numerous catalogues and in journals such as Afterall, A Prior, Mousse, e-flux journal online, F.R. David and Frieze.