Book Launch
Breaking Protocol Book Launch
Oct 8, 2023
3:00–4:30pm ET
Artbook @ MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave (at 46th Ave.)
Long Island City, NY 11101
At the height of the COVID pandemic, transdisciplinary artist Maria Hupfield embarked on a research project on the protocols of Indigenous performance—tracing Indigenous knowledge systems, land-preservation practices, and Native feminist scholarship to illuminate strategies for enacting refusal within anticolonial frameworks. In this vein, Hupfield convened “Coffee Break” sessions—a series of conversations held over Zoom in which she invited international Indigenous performance artists to discuss their work (from dance to stand-up comedy), who in turn invited other artists to join the next conversation. Deftly weaving written reflections, visual essays, poetry, short stories, and scores, Breaking Protocol (Inventory Press and Vera List Center for Art and Politics) builds on the Coffee Break conversations, honoring, in Hupfield’s words, “the strength and beauty of the artists who fuel and feed my practice; it comes from the desire to hold space together, connect, continue, resist, and thrive! These exchanges emphasize a diversity of practice, a grounding in Indigenous knowledge, and collective approaches to demanding sovereignty and critical accountability.”
The Breaking Protocol book launch brings together Hupfield and Thomas (T.) Jean Lax in a performance-based conversation.
Participants
Maria Hupfield, transdisciplinary Anishinaabek artist
Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Curator, Department of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art
Host, Re’al Christian, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
The Breaking Protocol Book Launch is organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics (VLC) at The New School in collaboration with Inventory Press and Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore, presented with the support of the Daisy Schapiro Lectureship Fund. Maria Hupfield is a 2020–2022 Borderlands Fellow, a joint initiative between the VLC and the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University.
Breaking Protocol is edited with an introduction by Maria Hupfield with written contributions and artworks by Jackson 2Bears, Pelenakeke Brown, Katherine Carl, Re’al Christian, Christen Clifford, TJ Cuthand, Raven Davis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Candice Hopkins, Akiko Ichikawa, Ursula Johnson, Kite, Charles Koroneho, Carin Kuoni, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Cathy Mattes, Peter Morin, Meagan Musseau, Wanda Nanibush, Archer Pechawis, Rosanna Raymond, Skeena Reece, Georgiana Uhlyarik, and Charlene Vickers, and reflections on Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau, Dennis Redmoon Darkheem, Natalie Diaz, The Dime Collective, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Jane Schoolcraft, and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. The book is co-published by Inventory Press and the VLC in association with the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and available here.
The Vera List Center is committed to ensuring that our programs are accessible to and inclusive of all. Please let us know when registering if you need any accommodations.
The Fall 2023 programs of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics are generously supported by members of the Vera List Center Board, the VLC Producers Council, Vera’s List, and other individual donors, and the following institutional donors: Australian Consulate-General of New York; The Boris Lurie Art Foundation and the Schaina and Josephina Lurje Memorial Foundation; Bridge Philanthropic Consulting; The Dayton Foundation; The Ford Foundation; The Kettering Fund; Mellon Foundation; The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation; and Pryor Cashman LLP. We also acknowledge the support of The New School, our academic home.