Diverse Discourse

Join DiverseWorks at MATCH for the Fall 2018 Diverse Discourse Lecture with Kemi Ilesanmi, Executive Director, The Laundromat Project, New York, NY. This lecture is co-presented with the Center for Art and Social Engagement, Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, University of Houston. Diverse Discourse brings national curators, artistic directors, and critics to Houston to present a free public lecture and conduct studio visits with  Houston-area artists, performers, and writers.  Diverse Discourse provides a significant opportunity for area artists in all disciplines to have their work reviewed by a variety of distinguished arts professionals, fostering a cultural exchange across the nation between artists and cultural producers. STUDIO VISITS Houston-based artists working in all disciplines (including performance) may apply for a studio visit with Diverse Discourse visiting lecturers. Artists are selected for studio visits by each visiting lecturer. Selected artists will be notified directly by DiverseWorks staff to schedule a visit. APPLICATION DEADLINE: Monday, October 22 / Click for online application and eligibility requirements ABOUT KEMI ILESANMI Kemi Ilesanmi is Executive Director of the Laundromat Project in New York City. With over 20 years experience in the cultural arena, Ilesanmi is inspired by the immense possibilities for joy and change at the intersection of arts, activism, and community. […]

Join DiverseWorks on Thursday, March 28 for the Spring 2019 Diverse Discourse Lecture with Sonia Guiñansaca, Managing Director, CultureStrike. Sonia Guiñansaca is an internationally acclaimed queer migrant poet, cultural organizer and activist from Harlem by way of Ecuador. Guiñansaca, a VONA/Voices and BOOAT Alumni, has performed at The Met, Brooklyn Museum, The Highline, Joe’s Pub, El Museo Del Barrio, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Lehmann Maupin Gallery and has been featured by NBC, PBS, Latina Magazine, Pen American, the Poetry Foundation, and the United Kingdom’s Diva Magazine to name a few. They have emerged as a national leader in the undocumented/migrant artistic and political communities. Guiñansaca was named as 1 of 10 Up-and-Coming Latinx Poets You Need to Know by Remezcla and is currently leading cultural equity work as the Managing Director of CultureStrike. Diverse Discourse Studio Visits: Application Deadline March 18 Houston-area artists working in any media or discipline (including visual artists, performance artists, media artists/filmmakers, writers, dancers, and choreographers) may apply online for studio visits with visiting Diverse Discourse speakers. CLICK FOR ONLINE APPLICATION &  ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

DiverseWorks is thrilled to welcome Shea Little to Houston for the Fall 2019 Diverse Discourse Lecture on October 2 at 6:30 pm at MATCH - Matchbox 2 theater. This talk is free, but an RSVP is required. ABOUT SHEA LITTLE Shea Little is the co-founder and Executive Director of Big Medium in Austin, as well as being a co-founder of the East Austin Studio Tour, the Texas Biennial, and Cantanker Magazine. He is also a working artist who has shown his work throughout the state both as an individual artist and also as part of the three-person collective, Sodalitas. He received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Big Medium is a non-profit organization dedicated to championing and cultivating artists and contemporary arts in Austin and across Texas. By providing city and state-wide programming, affordable studio spaces, innovative exhibitions, and professional development opportunities for artists, Big Medium works to foster the arts, empower artists, and facilitate an inclusive cultural dialogue between artists and their communities. Big Medium produces the West Austin Studio Tour, the East Austin Studio Tour, the Texas Biennial, and the Big Medium Gallery. The Texas Biennial is a geographically-focused, independent survey of contemporary art. […]

Join us for the Spring 2020 Diverse Discourse Lecture with Candice Hopkins, independent curator and writer, and Senior Curator, Toronto Biennial of Art. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the content and format of the lecture has shifted. Instead of her originally planned lecture, Sounding the Margins: Towards Decolonial Listening, Hopkins will present, The Golden Potlatch and the Gilded Gaze: Capitalism, Infection, and Early Colonialism. **This event will be presented live online via Zoom and Facebook Live. Registrants will receive access instructions and the Zoom link via email on Wednesday, April 1 prior tot he event start time. Those who wish to view via Facebook Live do NOT need to preregister through Eventbrite. The recorded lecture will also be made available on DiverseWorks' website after the event.** CLICK TO REGISTER Given the present climate, this lecture will center on the relationships between Indigenous economies, extractive colonialism and its attendant metaphors of infection and sickness. Beginning in the 1800s with the Klondike Gold Rush, early forms of capitalism and resource extraction in my homelands of Yukon, Canada were commonly described as viral: "So infectious was the Klondike epidemic that that flimsiest rumor served to send hundreds dashing to the farthest corners of […]

Co-presented with Asia Society Texas Center Join us online on Wednesday, October 7 at 6:30 pm for the Fall 2020 Diverse Discourse Lecture with Adriel Luis, Memory Transplant. Luis is Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. REGISTER HERE What makes a place? What are the elements that constitute a sense of here? As of late, most of the sites that surround us seem as remote and inaccessible as anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, we have learned to forge intimacy and share experiences that transcend space and borders. But can any measure of technology, online interaction, or knowledge accumulation from afar instill a pulse of a city, a familiarity with culture, and a notion of having been there – in the absence of physical presence? In Memory Transplant, writer and curator Adriel Luis attempts to form a relationship with Houston through a series of virtual studio visits with artists, video chats with community, and research online. Through this process, he reflects on the obstacles and opportunities of building community in an age of social distance. Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, and curator who believes that our collective imagination can make a reality where we all thrive. […]