Rome – International Arts & Artists

Roaming Through Rome with IA&A at Hillyer

August 22, 2019September 21, 2018 by CEP Intern

This past spring, International Arts & Artists (IA&A) had the opportunity to travel to Rome through a Sister Cities Grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. While in Italy, we met with artists, galleries, nonprofits, and universities with the aim of promoting artistic collaboration and exchange between Rome and Washington, DC.

This week, Allison Nance from IA&A at Hillyer shares her experience in Rome and highlights how this trip helped advance her program’s goals and projects.

Visiting Italy has been a life-long goal of mine, as my great-grandparents immigrated to the United States several generations ago. To visit Rome in the context of promoting the importance of artistic exchange, well, I can certainly check off this bucket list item and then some! There is an idealized view of Italy that many of us American’s have (“la dolce vita”, Under the Tuscan Sun, pasta, wine, etc). Of course, there was delicious food and wine – thank you Imen for cooking that incredible fresh seafood pasta dish! – but as a country with a deep history that is contemporary and dynamic, there was much to take in and learn. Several months after returning home, I think I’m still absorbing it all.

As Director of IA&A at Hillyer, a contemporary exhibition space in Washington, DC, I have had the privilege to work with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Embassy of Italy to develop and present programs that bring Italian language and culture to our local audience. This trip was a unique opportunity to strengthen these relationships. The Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Emanuele Amendola, as well as Renato Mirraco, former Cultural Attaché at the Embassy of Italy, introduced me to several artists, gallery owners, and nonprofit leaders living in Rome. Having these contacts made for a robust and fulfilling trip that has resulted in new, ongoing projects reaching into the next year. This project gave myself and two DC-based artists the opportunity to not only learn about the contemporary art scene in Rome but also to introduce DC’s rich artistic community to our counterparts in Rome.

As mentioned in previous blog posts from Stephanie, Rex, and IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs, we were able to present at a conference on the importance of international cultural exchange and how these exchanges have a lasting, positive impact on our local and international creative communities. We partnered with Sala 1, a nonprofit research center for contemporary art, architecture, performance, and music, to present this conference. Through this collaboration, we were able to meet four artists who were exhibiting at Sala 1, and this then led to presenting their work at Hillyer this past August. In addition, this coming spring I will be curating an exhibition in Rome at Sala 1 featuring the work of one of the artists who traveled with us in May, Stephanie Williams, along with two other DC-based artists, interdisciplinary artist Naoko Wowsugi and poet Elizabeth Acevedo. The exhibition will bring together different mediums to share work on gender, race, ethnicity, and the immigrant experience in America.

While we in Rome this May, one of the artists I conducted a studio visit with was Pietro Ruffo. Pietro has an incredible studio at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, a former pasta factory that was built in 1905 and later converted into artist studios in 2004. It was great to see him at work, introduce him and other artists to our DC artists, and to make this connection. Through a new Sister Cities Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, we are partnering with the Italian Cultural Institute to bring Pietro to the United States in May of 2019 for a solo exhibition at Hillyer.

Visiting Rome was exciting, and it’s hard to put into words how surreal it feels to turn a corner and be faced with the Colosseum or the Pantheon, or any number of ruins that are casually interspersed with daily life of a modern city. And while all of that was wonderful, my best memories, those that will stay with me, are meeting so many artists, curators, and new friends, who welcomed us into their homes to share a meal. While I speak little Italian, and sometimes language can seem to be an insurmountable barrier, coming together with these people to talk about art over a glass of wine or a quick espresso is the only language we needed to connect.

I look forward to see how all of these connections will come together and play out in the years to come. Ciao!

This blog post was produced as part of a grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Roaming Through Rome with IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs

August 22, 2019September 16, 2018 by CEP Intern

This week, Jennifer Schrock and Chris Sciotto from IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs share more about from their experience in Rome and highlight how this trip helped advance their program’s goals and projects.

There’s more to IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs than just J-1 visa sponsorship! We’re always seeking out new ways to build cross-cultural understanding through exchanges and partnerships in the arts. Our Exchange Visitor Program supports the next generation of creative leaders through internships, training programs, and other special projects in the arts. We’re also helping American museums and cultural organizations engage in more international work through our International Partnership Initiative. So when the opportunity arose to join our colleagues from IA&A at Hillyer in Rome this past spring, we jumped at the chance to further our program’s goals!

We kicked off our week with “Exchange Ideas”, a conference co-presented by IA&A, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and Sala 1, a nonprofit research center for contemporary art, architecture, performance, and music. Speaking at “Exchange Ideas” gave us the opportunity to highlight the benefits of and advocate for people-to-people exchanges. We were excited to speak with attendees afterwards and received great questions about exchanges from high school-aged students who were already thinking about interning abroad!

In addition to the conference, the networks we developed and organizations we learned of during our meetings revealed a number of potential partners for collaborative programming and exchanges. In sharing information about the Exchange Visitor Program with university career counselors, we received valuable feedback about when and where informational resources can make vital differences in a student’s ability to participate in an internship abroad. Throughout our trip, we also distributed a number of copies of our report Art in Context: The Current State of International Engagement.

While we were pleased to have made real headway on our objectives, speaking with university staff highlighted a gap that we would have loved more time to address. One thing we learned is that, in the broader context of finding internships abroad, the importance of applying for visa in preparation is not always made clear to students. We would have liked an opportunity to host an information-sharing session for educators, mentors, students, and other interested audiences to discuss the logistical considerations of participating in an exchange program.

Perhaps one of the most surprising things our team learned while speaking with some of Rome’s contemporary artists was the degree to which the city’s history and tradition of fine art, and the responsibility of maintaining that tradition, weigh on the creative consciousness of Roman artists. Of course, it was no surprise that a tradition of such importance and influence could seem imposing to contemporary creatives; as Americans, with a much shorter historical experience as a nation and a substantially younger culture, such a thought had not occurred to some of us before. IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs has been thinking of ways to incorporate the insight we gained from our discussions with artists into our public programs and we’re excited to use this element of creative identity in IA&A’s Art in Context programming series.

Overall, our trip to Rome was a great chance to further develop the relationship between American and Italian artists and cultural organizations, as well as to lay the foundations for future work. From facilitating reciprocal exchanges to collaborative programming, there’s no shortage of opportunities! We came away from our trip confident that personal relationships are the driving force behind lasting and meaningful international relationships. Parts of the trip would not have been possible without help from our contacts in Italy, including some alumni from our Exchange Visitor Program. This experience further reinforced the findings from Art in Context: The Current State of International Engagement regarding the value of personal relationships. We look forward to further developing our relationships with our new friends and partners!

This blog post was produced as part of a grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Roaming Through Rome with Stephanie

August 22, 2019September 11, 2018 by CEP Intern

Throughout the month of September, we’ll be sharing stories from our experience in Rome. You’ll hear from IA&A at Hillyer and IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs on how this trip helped advance our programs’ goals and projects, as well as two DC-based artists who joined us on the trip.

Meet Stephanie J. Williams, a multimedia artist who looks to the storytelling capability of material. An alum of RISD, her work has been shown locally, nationally, and internationally. Through installations and stop-motion animation, her work addresses how the established and self-made mythology helps us understand the world around us. She explores how power structures are built and how these structures establish legitimacies of taste, which in turn affect our ideas about identity.

Stephanie was one of the DC-based artists that joined us on our incredible trip to Rome. While there, she visited galleries, exhibition spaces, and other artists’ studios to learn more about the arts and creative work in the city. She also spoke at “Exchange Ideas,” a conference co-presented by IA&A, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and Sala 1. Stephanie shared how IA&A at Hillyer has supported her artistic career and the impact of cultural exchange on her work.

We caught up with Stephanie over gelato to learn more about her experience in Rome, what surprised her the most, and how the trip has impacted her creative practice.

You were recently in Rome with IA&A for a cultural exchange trip supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. What were your goals for the trip? Of these, was there anything in particular you would have liked more time to continue pursuing?

My goals wherever I travel are the same: to meet as many makers of culture as possible and participate in an exchange of ideas. That was something that was such a large part of this trip, especially within Rome’s DIY venues. Even though the week was generous, I wish that I had arranged to stay longer, explore and perhaps collaborate more directly with the artists’ spaces that we visited with.

What aspects of your own cultural experiences and their impact on your work were you most excited to share with your counterparts in Rome?

Many of the artists that I’ve met this year have been focusing in on origin stories, genealogy, and immigration. I find myself wondering who has the power to control the narratives of culture that become historical record. There are so many gaps in my knowledge that form my perspective as an American that I wonder, if anything that has been constructed is capable of being deconstructed, what fictions have I held as truth.

What are some new projects or directions in your work that you are excited to explore? Has your experience in Italy had a noticeable impact on your current practice or the work you have planned for the foreseeable future?

I’m sure that is has but that hasn’t been made clear to me yet. It’s been a travel-heavy year for me. So many changes, a new job, along with travels throughout Southeast Asia in addition to Rome. It’s been difficult to see how these new experiences are pushing the work.

Overall, what are some of the most significant takeaways from your experience in Rome?

There were so many pieces that I had grown up seeing in textbooks that form so many hierarchies of taste, that in person seemed so human. I really felt the atmosphere in Rome, everything from the food, the coffee, to what Allison called the “casual ruins” surrounding everything. The atmosphere was so much older and settled in Rome. It’s a special place.

This blog post was produced as part of a grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Roaming Through Rome with Rex

August 22, 2019September 6, 2018 by CEP Intern

This past spring, International Arts & Artists (IA&A) had the opportunity to travel to Rome through a Sister Cities Grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. While in Italy, we met with artists, galleries, nonprofits, and universities with the aim of promoting artistic collaboration and exchange between Rome and Washington, DC.

Meet Alexandra (Rex) Delafkaran, a San Francisco transplant living and engaging as an interdisciplinary artist, dancer, curator, and administrator in Washington, DC. An alum of the San Francisco Art Institute, Rex has exhibited in galleries across the country including “Tender Bits,” a recent solo show at IA&A at Hillyer that explored the relationship between cultural practices, desire, and utility. She is currently a participating guest writer at the local online art writing publication DIRT and curating projects of her own.

Rex was one of the DC-based artists that joined us on this incredible trip to Rome. While there, she visited galleries, exhibition spaces, and other artists’ studios to learn more about the arts and creative work in the city. She also spoke at “Exchange Ideas,” a conference co-presented by IA&A, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and Sala 1. Rex shared how IA&A at Hillyer has supported her artistic career and the impact of cultural exchange on her work.

We caught up with Rex over espresso to learn more about her work, her experience in Rome, and what’s next for this incredible artist.

How did you come to focus on language and identity as a theme throughout your works and across mediums?

After having moved across the country from California to DC, I began studying Farsi. I started attempting to write in partial English and Farsi as a practice, which was unexpectedly thrilling, and those began transforming into movement scores, which then became performances. Those elements of text then made their way into the ceramic sculptures I was working on, taking the notions of physical utility and intimacy and relating them directly to language. It kind of blew my mind, how much it all was coming together. Then in 2016 when the first iteration of the Muslim ban came to surface, the anger and disappointment and confusion I felt in response was completely overwhelming. Ultimately I think it was a noticeable catalyst in this direction of my work. I began researching the history of Iran and the areas where my family is from, and began looking for more information about the relationship between the United States and Iran, ancient Iranian art, and cultural practices that appear in both places. Language is the intermediary in this process of questioning the relationship between my sexuality, cultural background, familial history, and hyphen American identity, and the relationship those have to my immediate and extended community. I’m in an excavation of sorts, a dig, and I am standing on the edge of a large pit with a pile of dirt next to me and clay under my nails.

How does your involvement in performance art affect your creation of visual arts, and vice versa?

My practice has come to teach me that they both must coexist. I have danced and moved creatively my whole life, and that I think directly affects all the art I make and the way my ideas manifest. What does the piece feel like to make, hold, move; how do these ideas and this research manifest physically in the world, in my body? The two practices flow in and through each other dynamically. It’s actually a really sweet experience to realize “Oh this isn’t supposed to be a sculpture, it’s a performance!”

You mention seeking out means of starting conversations and provoking thought with your works. What kind of conversations did you wish to start with your recent exhibition at IA&A at Hillyer?

I think the extremely engaging and powerful aspect of working in conceptual art is that while I have been circling in my own little world about the work and its connections to art and culture and reality, there is room for so much dialogue. I want people to tell me how they feel about it, what do all these symbols do together? Do the chains feel violent to you? What is your relationship to flags? How do you feel about ceramic phalluses strapped to cinder blocks?

You were recently in Rome with IA&A for a cultural exchange trip supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. What were your goals for the trip? Of these, was there anything in particular you would have liked more time to continue pursuing?

The sister cities trip was an incredible experience for me as person and as an artist. Going into the trip I was the most excited to film performances in historic areas in response to their architecture, and I really feel like I was able to get some exciting documentation from those moments. What I was surprised by was how moving the historically charged architecture and public spaces were. At the end I found myself wanting to make more site specific, longer movement explorations. We also saw so many artists’ studios, I was surprised as to how inspired I was to make more sculpture when I got back to the United States. The incredible attention to history and craft was impactful and certainly affected my perspective on what it can mean to be an “artist” in other parts of the world.

What aspects of your own cultural experiences and their impact on your work were you most excited to share with your counterparts in Rome?

It was so exciting and fruitful to share my experience as a queer Iranian-American person with some of the artists we met. They expressed a lot of curiosity about why my identity felt like such a site for investigation for me, and that made me pay particular attention to who each artist is, what their relationship is to Rome culturally and socioeconomically. I wish I had more time to get an understanding of their relationship to the Middle East and Islam actually, especially based on their government’s stance on refugee asylum and immigration. Seeing how other people work was so eye opening, the experience makes me want to talk more and collaborate with international artists absolutely.

What surprised you most about the contemporary arts and artists of Rome?

I think the focus on craft and tradition. Hearing about the effects of living in an art historical site like Rome for young contemporary artists was fascinating and unfamiliar. That experience seems to clearly influence the forms and conceptual nature of the work there. It was surprising that the concept matter that seems so omnipresent in the contemporary arts that I see in the DC art scene had such a different aesthetic and priority in Rome.

Based on your recent experience in Italy, what roles do language and identity serve in the work of artists you met with in Rome? Has this affected your own strategies for sparking communication through art?

Absolutely. I think a lot of my work revolves around language already, and being in Rome surrounded by a literal different language, as well as different visual physical language was very affecting. I found that visual and physical language was the most engaging! The physicality of grand frescos, epic sculpture, fountains, piazzas, papal chapels - these felt like they were communicating so much. It sparked a reminder as to the power of curated and public spaces, and its relationship to the bodies and identities around and within them!

What are some new projects or directions in your work that you are excited to explore? Has your experience in Italy had a noticeable impact on your current practice or the work you have planned for the foreseeable future?

I am really excited about the flag series that is featured in my solo exhibition “Tender Bits,” “Flags for when you don’t know where you are.” It feels like I'm on the cusp of a new body of textile work based on that series, and I am really looking forward to working larger on these upcoming pieces as well. I also am hoping to explore some new ways of working with sculpture. I feel like I am still in awe of the reverence I experienced in public space in Rome, as well as the way the artists spoke about their craft and the aesthetics of beauty. I want to see what happens to the work I am making when I re-frame or re teach. This applies to movement as well, in my dance work I think these ideas are already surfacing in new ways.

Overall, what are some of the most significant takeaways from your experience in Rome?

It is possible to make room for awe and splendor in art alongside criticism. Physical experiences of international spaces can be listened to as richly and intently as an artist talk, new friend or unfamiliar languages. I was also reminded the power of collaboration and dialogue, and the importance on regularly stepping out of my artistic, political, and social comfort zones.

This blog post was produced as part of a grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Roaming through Rome with IA&A

August 22, 2019September 1, 2018 by CEP Intern

Accra. Seoul. Sunderland. Brasilia. What do these cities all have in common? They are all sister cities with Washington, DC! These partnerships give Washington, DC, the chance to share its culture, history, and challenges with its 14 sister cities around the world.

Rome, Italy, has been a sister city since 2011 and regularly cooperates with Washington, DC, on a range of cultural, economic, social, and educational projects. Several of these projects are supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which offers special Sister Cities Grants to support and strengthen the cultural bonds between Washington, DC, and Rome. Through this grant, IA&A recently had the opportunity to travel to Rome with a group of artists and arts professionals to promote artistic collaboration and engagement between the two sister cities.

The highlight of our visit to Rome was participating in “Exchange Ideas”, a conference co-presented by IA&A, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and Sala 1, a nonprofit research center for contemporary art, architecture, performance, and music. Hosted by Sala 1, the conference focused on how IA&A supports creative communities through local and international partnerships. Representatives from IA&A at Hillyer and IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs described our organization’s mission and programs, sharing stories of how our work supports the arts locally, nationally, and internationally. The conference also highlighted the work of two DC-based artists, Stephanie Williams and Alexandra “Rex” Delafkaran, who shared how IA&A at Hillyer has supported their artistic careers.

This cultural exchange was an incredible opportunity for IA&A to network with our counterparts in Rome and to develop the foundation for future collaborations between Washington, DC, and Rome. We came away from our visit eager to build on the connections we made and with plenty of ideas for future projects between our two cities!

Throughout the month of September, we’ll be sharing our experience in Rome through a series of posts right here on the blog. Team members from both IA&A at Hillyer and IA&A’s Cultural Exchange Programs will share more about their experience in Rome and how this trip helped to advance their programs’ goals and projects. You’ll also hear from Stephanie and Rex, who will share more about what they learned in Rome and how this cultural exchange has impacted their artistic practice. Ciao for now!

This blog post was produced as part of a grant funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.