ZOOM LINK TO PARTICIPATE: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87094009632

Though the most commonly recognized professional roles for artists are gallery representation and teaching, these models’ availability and stability are increasingly precarious. The weight of the global coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic crisis has added new depth to this insecurity, and the recent social justice uprising has led to questions around artists’ professional ambitions in relation to their personal values. These and other cultural shifts are leading artists to consider new ways to make and share their work while meeting their financial needs and deepening their connections to their communities.

In this pair of events conceived by Virginia Broersma, artist and founder of The Artist’s Office, and Corrina Peipon, artist and independent consultant, and developed in conjunction with Asuka Hisa, ICA LA’s Director of Learning and Engagement, we will discuss the role of self-determination in developing models of visual art practice that expand our understanding of what a sustainable, resilient career in contemporary art can look like. These 2-hour events will take place on zoom and will unfold in two parts: 1. Moderated panel discussion with three artist guests; 2. Breakout groups in which attendees can discuss the topics addressed in the panel, share knowledge, and receive conversational feedback about current or developing plural practices.

Par 1, July 22 from 4-6pm features artists Mandy Harris Williams, Programming Director at Women’s Center for Creative Work and Bari Ziperstein, founder of BZippy & Co.

Part 2 on July 29 from 4-6pm features artists Eva Aguila, co-founder of Coaxial Arts Foundation; Debra Scacco, founder of the Artist in Residence program at the Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator; and Devon Tsuno, activist, educator, and founder of Praxis Studio at Cal State University, Dominguez Hills.


About the artists of Part 1:
Mandy Harris Williamsis the Programming Director of the Women’s Center for Creative Work, an organization that cultivates LA’s feminist creative communities and practices. She is a theorist, multimedia conceptual artist, writer, educator, radio host and internet/community academic. Mandy’s work seeks to get everybody the love that they deserve. She focuses on desirability privilege as a real and mythological market and political force. She graduated from Harvard, having studied the History of the African Diaspora, as well as the mass incarceration crisis, and other contemporary black issues. She received her MA in Urban Education and worked as a classroom teacher for 7 years in low income communities.

Bari Ziperstein is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. Working in mixed media sculpture, Ziperstein’s primary focus is in ceramics. Her plural and fluid practice includes discrete objects, large-scale installation, site-specific public sculpture, and her line of functional ceramics, BZippy & Co. Materially experimental but conceptual at its core, Bari’s practice engages ideas of consumerism, propaganda, and the built environment. Her objects and sculptural tableaux reflect her interest in the political dimensions of capitalist economies and challenge the construction of desire and aspiration in contemporary American culture through a historical lens.


About the artists of Part 2:
Eva Aguila is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist who works in sound, video, theater, and performance art, and draws inspiration from structuralist film practices. She co-founded and is the artistic director of Coaxial Arts Foundation, an artist-run nonprofit space in downtown Los Angeles dedicated to experimental sound, video, and performance art. Coaxial Arts Foundation was created to support and expand the community of multimedia artists in Los Angeles.

Artist, curator and creative strategist Debra Scacco studies contemporary and historic structures of permission. Working at the intersection of history, culture and environment, her work connects policy to people by highlighting individual stories impacted by entrenched political structures.

Devon Tsuno is an artist and fourth generation Angeleno. His spray paint and acrylic paintings, artist’s books, community projects and print installations focus on Japanese American history, immigrants, native vs non-native plants, water, labor, and public space.

Virginia Broersma is a Los Angeles based artist whose work focuses on patterns of representation in figurative painting. Her engagement with the art community involves curating, writing, collaborative projects, public art, and art advocacy. In addition to her studio practice, she currently operates The Artist’s Office, through which she creates systems of support for artists’ professional practices.

Corrina Peipon is an independent art worker with a plural practice that encompasses art making, business, curatorial work, teaching, and writing. She founded her consulting practice in 2018 as a way to use her twin interests in art and business to help creative people navigate the opportunities and challenges they face in their careers. Her consulting, teaching, and advocacy work are focused on empowering art workers.