PRESS "While the artist’s own work encompasses painting and sculpture, Dyson has long treated drawing as a foundational medium. For her, it functions as a sort of micro-action, suitable for understanding problems that are so massive, systemic, intractable, and global as to exceed our conception—what the philosopher Timothy Morton, a figure who plays a central role in her thinking, calls “hyperobjects.” Our current environmental crisis is foremost among these, as is anti-blackness—the two intertwined issues to which the Wynter-Wells project is addressed." -via 4 Columns, click here for the full article.

Special hours => For this project we are open every day 12-6pm | Thurdays 12-8pm

The Drawing Center is pleased to announce Winter Term, a new annual initiative in which the museum will partner with an artist or organization whose mission it is to explore the transformative role that drawing can play in civic and global society. The yearly program, which will consist of public events, classes, and performances, as well as an exhibition, will build a community of people to investigate the efficacy of drawing as a tool for addressing inequity and encouraging social change. In a world ever more in need of human connection and compassion, Winter Term will ask how drawing, the most universal medium, might extend beyond the gallery space to provide concrete tools for collective engagement and collaboration. In this way, Winter Term provides a new model for exhibition making, as well as for the role that art institutions can play in the real world.

For the first session, which will take place from February 24 through March 11, 2018, The Drawing Center has invited artist Torkwase Dyson to create an installation and organize a two-week series of classes, discussions, and formal experiments developed from her incipient project the Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice—named for Jamaican writer Sylvia Wynter and American Civil Rights leader Ida B. Wells. The School will present an experimental curriculum employing techniques culled from the visual arts as well as design theories of geography, infrastructure, engineering, and architecture to initiate dialogue about geography and spatiality in an era of global crisis due to human-induced climate change. Participation in each class will be by application only (the afternoon sessions will be open to observation by the public). Drawings and sculptures by Dyson will be on view throughout the program’s run and Dyson will present during select “office hours” to discuss her work and the school with the public.

During an open studio-style installation, Dyson will explicate her own formal concept of “Black Compositional Thought” while terms such as improvisation, nomadicity, and re-orientation will be applied to techniques within abstract drawing that confront issues of environmental justice and the path towards a more equitable future. Confirmed invited guests include architect and author Mario Gooden; curator Rujeko Hockley; artist and designer Ekene Ijeoma; designer, artist, and urbanist Ron Morrison; professor and author Christina Sharpe; and architect and author Mabel O. Wilson. In addition, artist Andres Luis Hernandez will create a drawing score to which artist Zachary Fabri will respond in movement. The result of their collaboration will be documented in drawings and photography.

Organized by Claire Gilman, Chief Curator

Class Schedule
Tue, Feb 27; Fri, Mar 2; and Wed, Mar 7. Scroll down for details
Times for all classes: 10am-3pm with a break between Noon-1pm
10am to Noon - open to participants only
1pm to 3pm - open to participants and the public to observe

PROGRAM: WYNTER-WELLS DRAWING SCHOOL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

On View:
Drawings and sculptures by Dyson will be on view in the Main Gallery and Drawing Room. In addition, there will be books from Dyson’s library for perusal, as well as articles and reference material related to the issues under discussion.

Saturday, February 24
Torkwase Dyson will hold office hours from 12:00pm to 4:00pm in the Main Gallery. Additional office hours will be held on the following dates: Sunday, February 25; Thursday, March 1; Saturday, March 3; and Sunday, March 4.

Saturday, February 24 at 6pm
RSVP via eventbrite here
Christina Sharpe joins Dyson to discuss their collaborative project Ocular (A Work of Process) and what it means to make work with the purpose of revisitation. Drawing upon black spatial experiences informed by the transatlantic slave trade and global warming, Dyson created the film installation The Holds Multiply in response to Sharpe’s 2016 book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke University Press, 2016).

Tuesday, February 27
10am to Noon OPEN TO PARTICIPANTS ONLY
1pm to 3pm OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WITH ADMISSION
Class 1: Global Warming, Uneven Development and New Geographies: What is Global Warming? What is Climate Change? How are they different and what do they have to do with uneven development and geography? This class will address these questions through drawing as it relates to time, motion, and transparency.

Thursday, March 1 at 6pm
RSVP via eventbrite here
Panel discussion on North African nomadic architecture and other models of self-emancipation through architecture and design. With Ekene Ijeoma, Ron Morrison, and Mabel O. Wilson. Moderated by Rujeko Hockley.

Friday, March 2
10am to Noon OPEN TO PARTICIPANTS ONLY
1pm to 3pm OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WITH ADMISSION
This class is co-taught by architect and author Mario Gooden.
Class 2: Architecture and Liquidity: What types of energy are available to us and why should we diversify and use less? This class will investigate diverse sources of energy and their site-specific pros and cons. As a drawing project, it will consider hydroelectric power and gravitational potential energy as a way to examine state changes in matter and liquid. In addition, it will use the fundamental logic of elevation drawing to think through the science of water and the way in which it shapes space.

Wednesday, March 7
10am to Noon OPEN TO PARTICIPANTS ONLY
1pm to 3pm OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WITH ADMISSION
This class is co-taught by Andres Luis Hernandez.
Class 3: Nomadicity, Movement, and Improvisation: At a time when mass migration due to the effects of climate change is a critical question, artist and designer Andres L. Hernandez will guide the class through drawing as an interpretative act of movement. Dyson will hold a post activity discussion about nomadicity, movement, and improvisation inspired by the topic of self-emancipation through nomadic architecture, particularly that of North Africa. At the end of the day, the class will respond by exploring the notion of the perfect curve while listening to a playlist created by DJ Jet Toomer.

Friday, March 9, 6pm to 8pm
Closing reception

Winter Term 2018: Torkwase Dyson and the Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice is made possible by Lisa Silver and Jean-Christophe Castelli, and Isabel Stainow Wilcox.