Art and whales, silkworm and saltwater aquarium

Alaina Claire Feldman, director and curator of the Mishkin Gallery, a university art museum in New York, will present the important role of visual technologies in critical animal studies at a free lecture open to the public.

Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), the dialogue will offer glimpses into some aspects of Feldman’s work.

touching Staging the Ocean: The Emergence of the Aquarium in Victorian England, Examination of structures and representations in nature through saltwater aquarium apparatus.

Who speaks for the oceans? It suggests new and challenging ways to change whales’ understanding and relationships with other animals. An exhibition of over 15 interdisciplinary artworks that analyze epistemological and historical knowledge about life in the ocean.

Taxonomies of Power: Photographic Encounters at the Tbilisi State Silk MuseumCurated by art historian and cultural practitioner Mariam Shergelashvili, the exhibition features a selection of black and white photographs from the State Silk Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia. It will be shown together with the movie Raised in Dust (2022), with 47 images detailing the life cycle of the silk moth by Georgian artist Andro Eradze.

Feldman, who holds degrees in Social and Environmental Justice Studies from the Graduate Center and Art History/Critical Visual Studies from Pratt Institute in New York, is an adjunct professor in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College, City University of New York.

He has curated more than 20 exhibitions worldwide and edited numerous publications. His current research concerns visual technologies that contribute to the production of nature, the history of natural history, aquariums, critical animal studies, the act of collecting, and various collections.

Feldman, along with interdisciplinary scholar and writer Macarena Gómez-Barris, was awarded a Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

In January 2025, he will assume the position of first chief curator of the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and California Museum of Art at the University of California, Irvine.

Kim, who is also up-and-coming, is scheduled to serve as guest curator. Guest curator of the Center for Contemporary Art’s annual festival in Riga, Latvia, and the opening exhibition of the new Taichung Art Museum in Taiwan.

The talk is planned to be held on Friday, November 22 at 15.30 at The Loop on the 12th floor of the Benilde Design + Art Campus.

Interested participants can register online. forms.gle/XDFzxPNNNpySKGDc6.