The Urban Field Speakers Series centres on the role of art in transforming the experience of the city. Through lectures, audio-visual presentations and discussions, it explores how creative practices can help improve the quality of urban life and planning in Toronto and around the world. This series of monthly events brings together an array of international and local participants, including artists, architects, curators, designers and scholars, who are working at the intersections of technology, communications and aesthetics. Reflecting a broad range of perspectives and practices, the events build upon each other to inspire dialogue on the role of the city in art, and art in the city.
Programmed by Janine Marchessault and Scott McLeod and presented by Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art in association with the Visible City Project and Archive of York University
Nikos Papastergiadis
with Rinaldo Walcott
Thursday, February 9, 7:30 PM
Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art
401 Richmond St. West, Suite 124
Toronto
Nikos Papastergiadis, Professor of Cultural Studies, Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne, speaks about public screens and their transformation of public space. Moderated by Rinaldo Walcott, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
About Nikos Papastergiadis
Nikos Papastergiadis was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge, and he is currently a professor in the School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Melbourne. Prior to assuming his current role, he was Deputy Director of the Australia Centre at the University of Melbourne, Head of the Centre for Ideas at the Victorian College of Arts, and a lecturer in Sociology and a recipient of the Simon Fellowship at the University of Manchester. His current research investigates the historical transformation of contemporary art and cultural institutions by digital technology. Throughout his academic career, Papastergiadis has also provided strategic consultancies for government agencies on issues relating to cultural identity and has worked on collaborative projects with artists and theorists of international repute, such as John Berger, Jimmie Durham and Sonya Boyce. His books include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) and Spatial Aesthetics: Art, Place and the Everyday (2006). He is also the editor of several anthologies and the author of numerous essays that have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have appeared in major catalogues, including those of the biennial exhibitions of Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwangju, Taipei and Lyon. He is a participating scholar for Documenta 13.
About Rinaldo Walcott
Rinaldo Walcott is Associate Professor, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, and Special Advisor to the Dean on Equity and Accessibility at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Additionally, he holds a nominal appointment at the Women and Gender Studies Institute, also at the University of Toronto. His research is centred in the culture and politics of the black diaspora, with a secondary research interest in multicultural and transnational debates. Walcott is the author of Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada (1997/2003), the editor ofRude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism (2000) and the co-editor (with Roy Moodley) of Counselling Across and Beyond Cultures: Exploring the Work of Clemment Vontress in Clinical Practice (2010).
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