Online Panel Discussion
In this Artist to Artist conversation Present Futures welcomes performance artists Soojin Chang and Hamshya Rajkumar to discuss the ways in which their current work rejects the species binary exploring themes such as hybridization, interspecies relations and synthetic biology within their work.
In the current moment humanity is asking itself to rethink how we identify and connect with ourselves, each other, animals and the earth. Both Soojin and Hamshya’s practice is concerned with the possibility of co-evolving in a more sympathetic and mutually beneficial way with other living entities. They ask what it means to be human in a world where ‘nature’ is separate, dominated and objectified.
About Soo-jin Chang:
Soojin Chang was born in San Francisco, California in 1991. They attended University of California, Berkeley, where they studied literature, film, and queer theory. They graduated with an MFA in The Glasgow School of Art in 2020. In their work, Chang explores transmutations found in the intersections of race, species, gender, and class. Chang references their own body in much of their visual work, which are situated as multidisciplinary and hybrid frameworks, including self-documented performances, surreal documentaries, speculative ethology and ethnography, activism, writing, and collective staging of rituals. Their current research imagines multispecies surrogacy from migrant/diasporic perspectives across the animal/human divides. Chang's work has been featured in MoMA PS1, New York; ICA, London; CCA, Glasgow; The Lock-Up, New South Wales; Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh; Microscope Gallery, New York; and Addis Video Art Festival, Addis Ababa; among other venues.
About Hamshya Rajkumar:
Hamshya Rajkumar is a multidisciplinary artist working across live art, dance, graphic design and community. She graduated with a BA(Hons) Sculpture & Environmental Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2018, and Land Arts of the American West 2016 alumna.
By situating the body outside the constraints of binary structures, she explores our human place in a world where ‘nature’ is separate, dominated and objectified. Her performance work strives to reveal the spectrality of multiple scales of coexisting lifeforms as a social body. Current research involves decoding and distorting the traces of Ecologies in language, culture and gesture.
Online Panel Discussion
In this Artist to Artist conversation Present Futures welcomes performance artists Soojin Chang and Hamshya Rajkumar to discuss the ways in which their current work rejects the species binary exploring themes such as hybridization, interspecies relations and synthetic biology within their work.
In the current moment humanity is asking itself to rethink how we identify and connect with ourselves, each other, animals and the earth. Both Soojin and Hamshya’s practice is concerned with the possibility of co-evolving in a more sympathetic and mutually beneficial way with other living entities. They ask what it means to be human in a world where ‘nature’ is separate, dominated and objectified.
About Soo-jin Chang:
Soojin Chang was born in San Francisco, California in 1991. They attended University of California, Berkeley, where they studied literature, film, and queer theory. They graduated with an MFA in The Glasgow School of Art in 2020. In their work, Chang explores transmutations found in the intersections of race, species, gender, and class. Chang references their own body in much of their visual work, which are situated as multidisciplinary and hybrid frameworks, including self-documented performances, surreal documentaries, speculative ethology and ethnography, activism, writing, and collective staging of rituals. Their current research imagines multispecies surrogacy from migrant/diasporic perspectives across the animal/human divides. Chang's work has been featured in MoMA PS1, New York; ICA, London; CCA, Glasgow; The Lock-Up, New South Wales; Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh; Microscope Gallery, New York; and Addis Video Art Festival, Addis Ababa; among other venues.
About Hamshya Rajkumar:
Hamshya Rajkumar is a multidisciplinary artist working across live art, dance, graphic design and community. She graduated with a BA(Hons) Sculpture & Environmental Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2018, and Land Arts of the American West 2016 alumna.
By situating the body outside the constraints of binary structures, she explores our human place in a world where ‘nature’ is separate, dominated and objectified. Her performance work strives to reveal the spectrality of multiple scales of coexisting lifeforms as a social body. Current research involves decoding and distorting the traces of Ecologies in language, culture and gesture.