Discrit:Talks

Discrit (“critical discourse” / “discourse critique”) is an initiative of public knowledge-sharing and discussion. Spanning lectures, seminar-style discussions, critiques, and screenings, Discrit provides the public with programming dedicated to explorations of contemporary art and culture and free, university-quality art education. Discrit is Joey Molina and Chris Fernald.

Joey Molina is a multi-disciplinary artist and scholar working between video, installation, and collage. Their work engages with visual culture as material, object, and ephemera. Molina’s research interests include horror films, queer theory, and new media. They received their BA from Georgia State University in 2013 and will be on track for their MA in Film and Video at Georgia State University in Fall 2020.

Chris Fernald is an artist, writer, and cultural programmer. He is the Co-Founder of Discrit and a Graduate Student in the History of Art at Williams College. His work has been exhibited in group shows in New York and Mexico City, and his poetry and art criticism have seen publication in both Canada and the US. His writing and creative work often examine how modernity’s crises disassemble and re-constitute notions of personhood. Recurring subjects of interest include techno-spirituality, post-human cosmologies, lifestyle minimalism, animism, and the digital’s relation to the afterlife. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013.

Anna Akpele is the gallery manager at The Gallery by Wish, a new Atlanta project space hosting gallery exhibitions and contemporary cultural programming. Anna received her BFA in graphic design with a minor in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2014.

Sarah Higgins resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She is interim editor of Art Papers and curator of the Zuckerman Museum of Art (ZMA) at Kennesaw State University. For the ZMA, she has curated and produced catalogs for exhibitions such as Gut Feelings, Tomashi Jackson: Interstate Love Song, and A View Beyond the Trees. She has curated over 40 exhibitions featuring a diverse range of emerging, established, and international artists for institutions such as the Hessel Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989, Neenah, WI; lives in Atlanta, GA) received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Her work has recently been exhibited in “Between the Waters” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and “Photography Today: Public Private Relations” at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. She has had solo shows at Document Gallery, Chicago (2015, 2017) and Hester, New York (2015) and was included in ATLBNL: The Atlanta Biennial at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2016) among numerous group exhibitions at Downs & Ross, New York (2017), Honor Fraser, Los Angeles (2016), Galerie Division, Montreal (2016), and Ellis King, Dublin (2015). She has contributed to publications including BURNAWAY, The Creative Independent, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Art Papers, and has curated exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary, and elsewhere. In 2016-17, while she and her husband, artist Jason Benson, were studio residents at Atlanta Contemporary, they operated the artist-run space Species out of their shared studio. Species continues to occasionally produce exhibitions itinerantly, most recently presenting the work of Rhode Island-based artist Harry Gould Harvey IV at Atlanta Contemporary earlier this year.

Iman Person is a multidisciplinary artist, and curator currently residing in Atlanta, GA. Through her work, she embeds qualities of memory, ritual and the dichotomies of identity through metaphysical consciousness in relation to nature. Through drawing, installation, and performance, she aims to connect the logical and mystical body and create a space for viewers to experience a time travel of sorts. By inciting exploration of these forgotten spaces, and by forming new narratives focused on the unseen potentials of the physical form, Person believes a resurrection of the contemporary divine-body can be made and in turn positively affect our current concepts of nature.