Current Events
Patty Chang: Touch Archive
BANK Mab Society Press Release
New York––BANK NYC is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Patty Chang to inaugurate its New York pilot program. Opening concurrently with Chang’s newest commission by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition includes a selection of Chang’s more recent works, exemplifying her multidisciplinary practice across video, photography, and installation.
The exhibition centers on Chang’s video essay, We Are All Mothers (2022), comprising her reflections on Learning Endings, a larger collaborative research project between Chang, veterinary pathologist Aleksija Neimanis, and cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis. The project layers scientific, artistic, and theoretical perspectives to investigate communal mourning, the passage of intergenerational trauma, and approaches to multispecies care and repair.
We Are All Mothers emerged from pandemic-era virtual meetings where the three researchers conducted and observed harbor porpoise necropsies—dissections performed to determine the animals’ cause of death. Aleksija’s reports on porpoise deaths caused by bycatch, environmental pollutants, or disease form a database to prevent further species loss. As a collective, the researchers asked Aleksija to perform a ritual of touch before the necropsies, placing a comforting hand on the animal and incorporating afterlife care into her scientific protocol. Chang considers the intimacy of this gesture, positing the possibility of a “touch archive” in the body, created by memories of touch from body to body—or, in this case, from gloved hand to animal skin.
Images of the scientist’s hand holding the heads, flippers, and remains of the porpoises compose a visual touch archive, an empathetic companion to the veterinary necropsy database. The images from the touch archive are reproduced in the gallery as photographic snapshots, laid out for visitors to flip over and interact with. The installation borrows the mechanics of a memory game, requiring a physical engagement with the cards and recollection of the images when hidden from sight. The exercise reproduces the rituals of the touch archive, which in turn prods the audience to form new networks of touch memories.
Alongside this tactile intimacy, We Are All Mothers meditates profoundly on fear, an emotion Chang often revisits throughout her practice. She expands on these troubling thoughts in an earlier work, Things I’m Scared of Right Now (2018), which features a list of fears prompted by her experience of heatwaves and wildfires in Los Angeles. From “public speaking” to “Leroy’s future death” to “Fire, dying in a fire,” the work cultivates an empathetic space to document and purge human, motherly, and environmental anxieties, even foreshadowing the artist’s displacement due to the 2025 Eaton Fire.
Patty Chang’s works divulge these fearful possibilities, from the paralyzing concerns that emerge from one’s transition into motherhood to the global ecological crisis and our human impact. Yet, her work also calls for new activations from unease, exploring new modes of environmental conservation, an expansive understanding of motherhood and care for other beings, and a consideration for those often unseen.
Acknowledgments
Learning Endings is supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Hong Kong.
*The images (photographs, film) in Learning Endings were taken in the context of a national disease surveillance program in which found dead animals are examined to determine cause of death and to contribute to the health of living populations. The views expressed in this artwork do not necessarily express the views of the SVA.
About the Collaborators
ALEKSIJA NEIMANIS
Aleksija Neimanis is a veterinary pathologist and researcher who works with wildlife health and disease surveillance at the National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Sweden. She frames wildlife health findings within a One Health context, in which human, animal, and ecosystem health are all connected, to help inform policy.
ASTRIDA NEIMANIS
Astrida Neimanis is a feminist cultural theorist. Her research focuses on human-water relationships and climate catastrophe as a symptom of corrupted social and cultural relations. She is currently an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities at UBC Okanagan, on the unceded lands of the Syilx Okanagan people. Her most recent book is titled Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology (2017).
Talk Aleksija Neimanis- “Learning endings- and learning from cross-disciplinary collaboration”
Talk Aleksija Neimanis- “Learning endings- and learning from cross-disciplinary collaboration”
December 5, 2024. 09:15-09:45
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
72nd Annual Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association
Description of Event:
72nd Annual Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association, December 1-6, 2024, Canberra, Australia.
Session: Wildlife health and the arts, Thursday December 5, 09:00-10:30 including panel discussion on “Where could we go with the arts and wildlife health?”
Abstract:
Water covers 70% of the earth’s surface and healthy aquatic ecosystems are as vital as those on land. Cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) are top predators and their health and population status reflect the health of our marine environments. Poor health, disease and anthropogenic threats can impact cetacean species, other animals and ecosystems. Cetaceans spend their entire lives at sea, which makes them challenging to study. Necropsy, or post-mortem examination, of stranded, dead cetaceans can teach us about these individuals, their populations and the threats that these animals and their ecosystems face. But what else can we learn from these endings? Our cross-disciplinary project Learning Endings (www.learningendings.org) used cetacean necropsy as a starting point to try and find out.
Our collaboration was based on a funded pilot project that allowed us to invest time in learning about each other’s practices and processes, to probe where and how art and science differ, to explore our assumptions and to work through tensions that arose. Live-streamed necropsies and interviews sparked discussions on recurring themes that included ritual, care, grief and being stranded. Ritual was especially evident in the practice of necropsy where one examines and samples the animal in the same way every time according to standardized protocols. Our project also experimented with a new protocol, the touch ritual, that was added to the necropsy procedure. Through images and storytelling, I will share how our project helped me understand necropsy as a form of care, how art can support scientists in their work and how the insights we gained on tough subjects like endings and extinctions can be communicated to a broader audience with hopes of facilitating a deeper appreciation for ocean care.
Scratching at the Moon
Organized by ICA LA guest curator Anna Sew Hoy and Good Works Executive Director Anne Ellegood, Scratching at the Moon is the first focused survey of Asian American artists in a major Los Angeles contemporary art museum. The exhibition celebrates the work of an intergenerational group of thirteen leading artists in the Asian American community whose contributions to culture are multiple, ranging from their distinctive visual arts production to their commitment to pedagogy to their dedication to research, activism, and community engagement. Featured artists include Patty Chang, Young Chung, Vishal Jugdeo, Simon Leung, Michelle Lopez, Yong Soon Min, Na Mira, Amanda Ross-Ho, Miljohn Ruperto, Dean Sameshima, Anna Sew Hoy, Amy Yao, and Bruce Yonemoto.
Scratching at the Moon centers on artistic production in Los Angeles to trace the overlapping activities among dynamic communities of Asian American artists who have contributed significantly to the city’s art world over the past two decades. The initial idea for the exhibition came in the summer of 2020 during a period of immense social upheaval. Still in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic marked by loss, unrest, and uncertainty, the movement in support of Black lives erupted across the country with public protests in the wake of egregious police violence. Simultaneously, Asian Americans faced increased attacks amid false rhetoric about the pandemic. In response, communities came together to uplift one another, strengthen bonds, and survive this singular global emergency. It was at this time that artist Anna Sew Hoy began to imagine an exhibition of Asian American artists with indelible ties to Los Angeles that would make visible the communities and relationships in which she had participated since returning to the city in 2002.
While Los Angeles has long been home to a large and growing Asian American population, the work of artists from diasporic immigrant communities remains underrepresented in art institutions in the city. Scratching at the Moon presents significant works—several created specifically for the exhibition—by artists who were born in the United States or who emigrated here from Korea, the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Canada. Encompassing the mediums of video, multi-media installation, sculpture, ceramics, photography, and performance, these artists’ works confront such topics as the formation of identity, gender roles and class struggle, structural and environmental racism, immigration, cultural assimilation, gentrification, family dynamics and intergenerational teachings, and legacies of settler ideologies on academic disciplines. Scratching at the Moon also highlights the diverse stories of the Asian diaspora—undeniably “American” stories—that counter the hurtful untruths being deployed to further marginalize Asians of all backgrounds. Though the exhibition relies on the category of Asian American to redress the lack of representation, it also pulls apart that very category by honoring the diversity and multiplicity within it.
Scratching at the Moon argues that every body is an archive within which generations of experiences across continents and temporalities are held. The stories expressed by the works on view trouble and expand our understandings of what it means to be Asian American. Beyond superficial characteristics, they present a far more complex sense of identity as something informed by experiences of displacement, cross-cultural existence, misidentification, and marginalization, alongside strong family bonds, chosen communities, and resiliency. Contributing to efforts of coalition building, collaboration, and the beautiful entanglements that shape identity, Scratching at the Moon celebrates and historicizes the important work of these artists. Their commitment to community, criticality, and resistance is visible throughout the exhibition, and Scratching at the Moon provides an opportunity to bear witness, together, to the crucial stories they bring to light.
Talk - Astrida Neimanis and Aleksija Neimanis “Learning Endings: Care for the Stranded” followed by a film screening of "We Are All Mothers" by Patty Chang.
Talk - Astrida Neimanis and Aleksija Neimanis “Learning Endings: Care for the Stranded” followed by a film screening of "We Are All Mothers" by Patty Chang.
December 11th, 2023. 13:40-15:10
Center for Applied Ecological Thinking, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
With and Against the Current: Exploring Hydrofeminism(s)
December 11-12, 2023
Center for Applied Ecological Thinking, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
This symposium brings together transdisciplinary researchers, artists and writers who have inquired into and been inspired by watery histories and subjectivities. We are interested in exploring conversations between different media, genres and subject positions.
How do we care for and become with bodies of water, across differences- among species, privileges, and locations? How can our ways of moving in the world be inspired by fluid states of being? How does water carry (memories of) injustice and violence, while also containing potentialities for connectedness and healing?
On Dec 11th, Astrida Neimanis and Aleksija Neimanis present ‘Learning Endings: Care for the Stranded’ a collaborative project on marine mammal death. This is followed by a film screening of"We Are All Mothers" by Patty Chang and discussion with Astrida Neimanis and Aleksija Neimanis, moderated by Ida Bencke (University of Copenhagen).
“Learning Endings – a project across disciplines” — The One Health Breakfast Club, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Future One Health and Urban Futures presents the One Health Breakfast Club #9: an inspirational talk by Aleksija Neimanis, of the National Veterinary Institute.
Hard Return: A Performance Exhibition
A participatory performance with a large scale memory game made by the artist Patty Chang.
Details TBA
Bodies of Water, Learning Endings - Liberated Planet Studio
Liberated Planet Studio
Fluid Bodies, Sea Memory, Aquatic Relations “Something New Will Come From The Water”
Register for Bodies of Water, Learning Endings 3/18/23
Every year, hundreds of whales and other marine mammals strand on terrestrial shores. These ocean-dwelling animals are mostly hidden from humans during their lifetimes, but in a stranding death, they reveal themselves to us, and call on us to care. The scientific practice of necropsy attends these animals in their deaths as a queer way of witnessing their lives, and caring for their kin. An act of deep intimacy and deep implication, necropsy opens the ocean and the animal to the human sensorium. How can we prepare ourselves to meet this vulnerability?
This workshop will attune to the micro-movements of our own bodies of water. Through listening and touch, our organs rearrange, as we contemplate what these animals, in their deaths, also ask of us. Together, we are learning endings.
Please wear comfortable clothing, and bring a phone or MP3 player that can play a sound file from the internet, as well as earphones/earbuds (if you do not have these, please let us know and we will provide them). Please bring anything else that will increase your comfort (e.g. water bottle).
This workshop is offered by Learning Endings, a multi-part interdisciplinary research project led by artist Patty Chang (Los Angeles), cultural researcher and writer Astrida Neimanis (Kelowna, BC) and veterinary pathologist Aleskija Neimanis (Uppsala, Sweden). It examines the work of scientists who perform necropsies of dead marine mammals as unacknowledged forms of attention and care, and explores how various kinds of art practice can support this care work. Including laboratory observation, expert interviews, walking art, filmmaking, community engagement, poetics, public outreach, and the sweaty work of interpersonal and interdisciplinary exchange, Learning Endings seeks different kinds of conversation about science, oceans, and human responsibility. As we try to figure out how to respond to so many untimely endings, how might we reconfigure the role of both science and art as part of the complicated ecologies of mutual care in and for the oceans, and for the beings that call it home?
Astrida Neimanis talk: CARE FOR THE STRANDED
A talk by Astrida Neimanis, associate professor, English and Cultural Studies, Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan
Every year, hundreds of whales and other marine mammals strand on terrestrial shores. These ocean-dwelling animals are mostly hidden from humans during their lifetimes, but in a stranding death, they reveal themselves to us, and call on us to care.
What might this care look like? What can these deaths teach us about the lives of these animals, and about the entangled futures of humans and oceans? Drawing on collaborative research with artist Patty Chang and veterinary pathologist Aleksija Neimanis, this talk wonders about the possibilities of transdisciplinary practice and an ecosystems approach to care.
This event is sponsored by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, with the support of the Faculty of Fine Arts, and organized by Erin Robinsong and Mark Sussman.
This is an in-person event with a possibility of attendance via Zoom. Register in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
The thumbnail image (photograph) was taken in the context of a national disease surveillance program in which found dead animals are examined to determine cause of death and to contribute to the health of living populations. The views expressed in this artwork do not necessarily express the views of SVA (National Veterinary Institute Sweden). / Photo credit: Aleksija Neimanis, SVA
Care for the Stranded: A Shoreline Walkshop
RSVP HERE
This program is organized by Patty Chang, Aleksija Neimanis, and Astrida Neimanis, with contributions from regional knowledge keepers Ken Workman, member of the Duwamish Tribal Council, and research biologist Jessie Huggins, as well as Canadian-based audio artist Anne Bourne.
On August 7, 2016, a juvenile humpback whale died on the beach just south of Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal in West Seattle. This animal was one of hundreds of marine mammals that strand every year on the northwest coast of the Pacific. These ocean-dwelling animals are mostly hidden from humans during their lifetimes, but in a stranding death, they reveal themselves to us, and call on us to care. This care can take many forms—from traditional ceremony, to scientific necropsy, to community vigil. Join Learning Endings collaborators for a forest and shoreline walk of storytelling, conversation, participation, and performance as we collectively consider what the death of the Fauntleroy humpback can teach us about the lives of these animals, those who care for them, and the entangled futures of humans and oceans.
Care for the Stranded is part of Learning Endings, a multi-part project by artists and researchers Patty Chang, Astrida Neimanis, and Aleksija Neimanis. Through a series of events, gatherings, research, and discussions, Learning Endings brings together local communities, scientists, artists, and humanities researchers to consider ecologies of care in a time of endings, with a focus on stranded marine mammals. For this Shoreline Walkshop, the Learning Endings collaborators will be joined by regional knowledge keepers Ken Workman, member of the Duwamish Tribal Council, and research biologist Jessie Huggins, as well as Canadian-based audio artist Anne Bourne.
DETAILS & DIRECTIONS
We will convene at the northernmost parking lot off of Fauntleroy Way SW, next to the park entrance sign at 9:30 AM. From there, the Learning Endings collaborators will lead the group through the park, stopping at predetermined points for conversation and activities. The route, with stops, should take about three hours to complete. Food and drink will be provided to participants at the final stop.
LEARNING ENDINGS COLLABORATORS
Patty Chang is a Los Angeles based artist and educator who uses performance, video, installation and narrative forms when considering identity, gender, transnationalism, colonial legacies, the environment, large-scale infrastructural projects and impacted subjectivities. She teaches at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA.
Aleksija Neimanis is a veterinary pathologist and researcher who works with wildlife health and disease surveillance at the National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Sweden. She frames wildlife health findings within a One Health context, in which human, animal and ecosystem health are all connected, to help inform policy.
Astrida Neimanis is a feminist cultural theorist. Her research focuses on human-water relationships, and climate catastrophe as a symptom of corrupted social and cultural relations. She is currently Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities at UBC Okanagan, on the unceded lands of the syilx okanagan people. Her most recent book is Bodies of Water (2017).
CARE FOR THE STRANDED CONTRIBUTORS
Anne Bourne Artist/composer, improviser, creates emergent streams of cello, voice, field recording, image and text. Seasoned in international recording, concerts, somatic dance, and distance telematics, Anne is in research creation with Astrida Neimanis; Philippe Léonard; Hanna Sybille Müller; and Kara Lis Coverdale. A sonics improviser with composer Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) and alumni of the sangre de cristomountain range deep listening retreats. Anne imparts Oliveros’ text scores, leads environmental listening and sounding, to create in collective empathic gesture, in the coalescence of difference, and walk. Anne is an affiliate of Center for Deep Listening, NY, and IICSI, CA; on the Board of Trustees for IONE, in support of the Pauline Oliveros Trust. A listening participant at TBA21 OceanUNI, Ocean Space, Venice IT; and field recording ecologies at Geopoetics Symposium, Cortes Is.CA, 2022. A Chalmers Fellow, Anne is writing ‘soundfield memory restoration archive’ with footsteps as touch; composing in attunement to the spectral wave patterns of water. annebournemusic.com
Jessie Huggins is a research biologist with Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, WA. As their stranding coordinator, she leads Cascadia’s responses to and examinations of stranded marine mammals in Washington State, specializing in large whale and other cetacean strandings. Her current research interests include marine mammal diseases, long-term stranding trends, and human impacts. In addition to stranding response, she works on various aspects of Cascadia’s large whale photo-identification projects. She is a Pacific Northwest native and received her BS in Zoology from the University of Washington in 2001.
Ken Workman is a Native American from the Duwamish Tribe and 5th generation Great-Grandson of Chief Seattle. Ken retired from The Boeing Company’s Flight Operations Engineering Group where he worked as a Systems and Data Analyst. He is a member of the Duwamish Tribe, the first people of Seattle, and former Duwamish tribal council member as well as a former president of Duwamish Tribal Services, the non-profit arm of the Duwamish Tribe. He is a and former Board member of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society Non-Profit Boards. Today Ken enjoys his retired life where takes long walks in the mountains east of Seattle where he lives on a river.
CREDITS
Care for the Stranded evolved from the Learning Endings collaborators’ involvement in the Henry’s Artist Fellowship Program, which is intended to advance artistic inquiry through the mutual exchange between invited artists and the larger University of Washington (UW) community. It is designed as a generative program that promotes dynamic collaboration and facilitates artistic development, aligning the Henry's commitment to innovation and inquiry with the University's standing as a leader in research. The 2022 pilot year of the Artist Fellowship Program was made possible by the Jones Endowed Fund for the Arts. This program is also supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Hong Kong.
Sounding Care
Download Sounding Care Readings
Join us for an evening of reading, listening, and reflecting on these questions together. Patty Chang and Astrida Neimanis will bring together contributions of words and sounds from various writers, artists, and scientists. No advance preparation required; readings and listening selections will be provided. All are welcome!
Sounding Care is part of Learning Endings, a multi-part project by artists and researchers Patty Chang, Astrida Neimanis, and Aleksija Neimanis. Through a series of events, gatherings, research, and discussions, Learning Endings brings together local communities, scientists, artists, and humanities researchers to consider ecologies of care in a time of endings, with a focus on stranded marine mammals. Sounding Care will lead up to their walkshop in September, a walking tour at a local site related to a marine mammal stranding. This community event will provide an opportunity for participants to collectively reflect on mutual care, death and intimacy in relation to oceans.
Sounding Care is presented by the Artist Fellowship Program, which is intended to advance artistic inquiry through the mutual exchange between invited artists and the larger University of Washington community. It is designed as a generative program that promotes dynamic collaboration and facilitates artistic development, aligning the Henry's commitment to innovation and inquiry with the University's standing as a leader in research. The content of Sounding Care emerged from conversations developed through the Artist Fellowship Program with artists and the greater UW community: Charlotte Coté, Associate Professor in American Indian Studies; William Wilcock, Professor in School of Oceanography; and AF Jones of Laminal Audio.
A Gut Feeling
Astrida Neimanis, “A Gut Feeling”
A micro-essay part of Silent Whale Letters, by Vibeke Mascini and Ella Finer (hosted by Ocean Archive, TBA21):
https://ocean-archive.org/story/silent-whale-letters (scroll down to 28 March, 2022)
Ritual: A Workshop
Ritual: A Workshop at Henry Art Gallery
In collaboration with the Henry Art Gallery and interdisciplinary researcher Cleo Wolfle Hazard, Learning Endings took part in Ritual: Form and Function in Scholarly & Artistic Practice session. PhD students across a number of disciplines engaged with the Learning Endings memory game and shared their views on interdisciplinary collaboration, interspecies relations of care, death and mourning, memory, touch and care.
Care for the Stranded
Astrida Neimanis, “Care for the Stranded” at Busan Sea Art Festival 2021
A talk and conversation with Ritika Biswas, Busan Sea Art Festival 2021, “Non-/Human Assemblages” (14 October, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6WlxqFQRyY
Care for the Stranded
Astrida Neimanis “Care for the Stranded” at Nottingham Trent University 2021.
A public lecture as part of the 2021 Critical Poetics Summer School, organized by the Critical Poetics Research Group at Nottingham Trent University in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary (28 June, 2021) https://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/whats-on/poetry-care-for-the-stranded/
Water/Bodies: Strange Kinships and One Health
Speakers: Aleksija Neimanis and Astrida Neimanis.
Hosted by MNAI Convenes.
Art and Environmental Crises
Astrida Neimanis and Patty Chang, “Art and environmental crises”, virtual seminar for the National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Sweden. Hosted by Aleksija Neimanis.
How do different disciplines work with environmental crises and how can we collaborate? Porpoises and other marine mammals are examined by necropsy at the Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases, National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Sweden to further our understanding of cause of death, health status, and diseases and other threats that these animals are exposed to. Other disciplines explore similar issues using their own methodology and expertise, and there are several ways in which we can communicate what we do and why.
Within a pilot project between an internationally recognized artist, Patty Chang (USA), a humanities scholar, Astrida Neimanis (Canada) and myself, Aleksija Neimanis, a wildlife pathologist at SVA, we explore necropsies of marine mammals as a form of care for these species and the ecosystems in which they live. As a part of our collaboration, I have invited Patty and Astrida to tell SVA more about what they do and how they work with environmental issues within their disciplines. All who are interested are very welcome to participate in this virtual seminar.