Precarious Decades Rehana Zaman and Amanprit Sandhu

Rehana Zaman, Tell me the story Of all these things, 2016, video still. Image courtesy the artist and Tenderpixel.

This conversation between artist Rehana Zaman and curator Amanprit Sandhu explores strategies of disagreement enacted by artists and curators. This talk considers the role played by the dissent, using the socio-political arts and cultural movements of the 70s and 80s as departure points. The problems of performing politics in public and the tensions of collaboration and group activity will be a focus of their conversation.

The event is the first in a series of three in-conversations between artists and curators to take place between January and March 2017. The ‘Precarious Decades’ series will examine strategies of hope and subversion through collaboration and allegiance. These were marked out as decisive ways of working for artists and curators, committed to interrogating questions around race and gender in the post-war period of the 20th century. Given the precarious political moment we find ourselves in now, do artists working today see themselves presenting a different spectrum of historical, theoretical and political influences and encounters? What are the new terms of reference for curatorial and artistic practice framed by the experience of the diaspora?

Biographies

Rehana Zaman is London based artist, working with moving image and performance. Her work considers the interplay of multiple social dynamics that constitute subjects along particular socio-political formations. These narrative based pieces, often deadpan and neurotic, are frequently generated through conversation and collaboration with others. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Tell me the story Of all these things’, Tenderpixel, London, UK; ‘Giantess’, StudioRCA, London UK (both 2016); ‘Some Women, Other Women and all the Bittermen’, commissioned by The Tetley, Leeds UK (2014); ‘I, I, I, I and I’, Art Rotterdam Projections NL with Tenderpixel (2014); ‘What an Artist Dies in Me / Exit the Emperor Nero’, Outpost, Norwich UK (2013) and ‘I, I, I, I and I’, commissioned by Studio Voltaire, London UK (2013).

Amanprit Sandhu is an independent curator based in London, with a particular focus on performance-based practices, and commissioning in the public realm. She is the co-founder of the curatorial collective DAM Projects, which uses temporary exhibitions and events to support emerging, underexposed and unorthodox artists, art scenes, discourses and debates. She is a Project Curator for Art on the Underground, curated the performance programme for both Art 13 and Art 14 London art fairs and produced a series of commissions for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial. Previous to this she was Project Manager for Frieze Foundation and Assistant Curator at the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Event recording