Archival Futurisms: Memory and the Ruins of Imperialism

Artist, filmmaker, and writer Michelle Dizon gives a free, public lecture as part of the Spring 2018 Intra-Disciplinary Seminar (IDS) lecture series.

Michelle Dizon is a visual artist, theorist, and educator who resides on the unceded land of the Tongva people. Her ancestors are from the province of Maguindanao, Mindanao. Dizon's life experience has been shaped by the politics of migration across the Pacific Rim. The violence of imperialism and the intimate spaces of resistance within globalization form central pivots in her work which take the form of multi-channel video installations, multi-image slide projection, expanded cinema performances, essay films, photographs, discursive events, pedagogical platforms, and writing.

She has exhibited and lectured internationally at venues such as the Center for Women’s Studies (Zagreb, Croatia), Caixaforum (Barcelona,Spain), Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark), Jeu de Paume (Paris, France), IASPIS (Stockholm, Sweden), Salasab (Bogotá, Colombia), Metropolitan Museum of Art (Manila, Philippines), Sumaryo Art Space (Jakarta, Indonesia), Vargas Museum (Manila, Philippines), Para/site Art Space (Hong Kong, China), Queens Museum (Queens, United States), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, United States) and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, United States). Recent publications include White Gaze (with poetry by Viet Le) and essays in Visual Anthropology and I Can Call This Progress to Halt. Dizon is the recipient of the City of Los Angeles Master Artist Fellowship and grants from Art Matters, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Human Rights Center.

Dizon is the founder of at land’s edge, an autonomous pedagogical initiative that centers the voices of people of color and that has worked since its inception to build a community of cultural producers committed to social transformation. She earned an MFA in Art with specialization in Interdisciplinary Studio at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. She is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

This event is part of the Spring 2018 IDS Lecture Series at The Cooper Union, organized by Leslie Hewitt and Omar Berrada. The IDS Public Lecture Series is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding and support from the Robert Lehman Foundation for the series. The IDS Public Lecture Series is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.