Federico Campagna & Sarah Shin + Aviva Silverman

18 h - Federico Campagna & Sarah Shin

For the program's first act, writer and philosopher Federico Campagna engages in a lecture / ritual / conversation together with publisher and writer Sarah Shin, co-founder of Ignota Books. Through a four part discussion following a rubric of image, song, text and action the pair will unravel and reconstruct ideas about the map, the journey, death and angels. They will draw from their interests in theology, altered states, divine or daimonic forces, and various constructions of reality.

Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher based in London. His latest books are Prophetic Culture (Bloomsbury 2021, forthcoming in Spanish with Enclave de Libros) and Technic and Magic (Bloomsbury 2018). He is currently writing a new book on syncretic imagination in the Mediterranean world. He is a lecturer in philosophy at KABK in the Hague and works as the rights director at the radical publisher Verso Books.

Sarah Shin is a publisher, editor, writer and curator. She is a co-founder and director of Ignota Books, a publishing and curatorial platform exploring technology, myth-making and magic, and Silver Press, a small feminist publisher.

19 h - Aviva Silverman

For part two of act one artist Aviva Silverman shepherds the listener through an experimental composition of spoken word, guided meditation and rhythm inspired by the Ying Yang Twins´ Whisper Song. This audio contribution draws from the artist's interest in wordless melodies and in the Hasidic tradition of Niggunim: mystical prayers which are meant to deepen the soul, expand the spirit and embrace the divine.

Aviva Silverman (New York, 1986) works in sculpture and performance to dissect the messy radiance between the symbolic and actual. Votive forms, like dioramas, miniature trains, blown glass, and ornate tableaux, are viewed through a contemporary queer lens, resulting in a dynamic study of conflicting histories of communion. The New York-based artist, who in the past has staged theatrical performances in which untrained dogs played characters from popular culture, has recently embedded hand-sculpted icons of LGBT luminaries in a spirited cyclical procession. Silverman’s work investigates the ineffable notions surrounding sex, gender, sexuality and religion, addressing incomprehensibility, knowledge, and faith.

Solo exhibitions and performances include The Living Watch Over the Living ii, Volksbühne, Berlin (2019); Protect Me From What I Am, Swiss Institute, New York (2019); and Twister, MoMA PS1, New York (2016). Group exhibitions include Witch Hunt, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark (2020); Greater New York, MoMA P.S.1 New York (2015); It Can Howl, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia (2016); and I Surrender Dear, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria (2016). Their work has appeared in Artforum, the New Yorker, BBC Radio, Art in America, Flash Art, and Art Papers, among others and her book “Is It Soup Yet?” can be found at Printed Matter / St Marks.