The New York Public Library

 

presents

 

An Artist Dialogue Series Event

 

Qiana Mestrich

 in conversation with

Susan Bright

 

Saturday November 22, 2014

2:30 p.m.

 

The Corner Room
1^st Floor

 

The New York Public Library

Mid-Manhattan Library

5^th Avenue at 40^th Street

New York, NY 10018

917-275-6975

 www.nypl.org

(directions)

 

 The Corner Room opens to public at 2:00 p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation.  

 

Join us for a conversation between artist Qiana Mestrich and curator Susan Bright on how an American chemical company made fashion history and inspired thousands of mothers to name their children after a nylon fabric.

 

This conversation explores the artist’s research into the creation of DuPont’s Qiana® nylon fabric whose branding permeated the African American community in which it became a uniquely popular girl’s name from the late 1960s to early ‘80s. This dialogue is in context with Mestrich’s Inherited Templates and Necked photo collage work on view as part of Photo Walls in Picture Collection and Art in the Windows exhibitions series.

 

Qiana Mestrich is a photobased visual artist and writer from Brooklyn, NY. A 2013 graduate of the ICPBard College MFA in Advanced Photographic Practice, her autobiographical work establishes a study of heritage within complex and convoluted visual histories. She is the founder of Dodge & Burn: Diversity in Photography History, which profiles photographers of color. Her critical writing has also been published in art journals such as Nueva Luz, ARC Magazine and SPE’s exposure. In 2012, she coedited (with fellow ICPBard alumna Michi Jigarjian) How We Do Both: Art and Motherhood (Secretary Press), a book about and by contemporary artist mothers. Qiana Mestrich is also an experienced digital marketing professional (SEO and Social Media) with a fourteen year career working within large corporations and international brands.

 

Susan Bright is a British curator and writer based in New York. Her curatorial practice operates across exhibitions, writing, public speaking, and teaching. Particular research interests include self-portraiture, specializing in the representation of mothers across fine art and the media. She was formerly Assistant Curator at the National Portrait Gallery and Acting Director for the MA Photography program at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London. She was Visiting Artist in the MFA Photography Program at The Arts Institute Boston in the spring of 2014. Recent exhibitions include Home Truths: Photography and Motherhood  (The Photographers' Gallery and Foundling Museum, London), Something Out Of Nothing (Fotogalleriet, Oslo), How We Are: Photographing Britain (cocurated with Val Williams, Tate Britain) and Face of Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She is author of Art Photography Now (2005 and 2011) and Auto Focus The Self Portrait in Contemporary Photography (2010) both published by Thames and Hudson.

 

Initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni in 2004, Artist Dialogues Series provide an open forum for understanding and appreciation of contemporary art. Artists are paired with critics, curators, gallerists, writers or other artists to converse about art and the potential of exploring new ideas.