"How did she find herself here? Nancy Holt, 1973-76" A slide installation by Ginger Brooks Takahashi, 1997/2007

Although Nancy Holt has rarely engaged with feminist debates, much of what has been written about her work seeks to inscribe her into a fixed gendered position in relation to the history of Land art. This positioning has historically precluded a more nuanced engagement with questions of artistic production and subjectivity. On the occasion of the Nancy Holt: Sightlines exhibition at the Graham Foundation, two artists—Ginger Brooks Takahashi and Graham Foundation grantee Ines Schaber—consider the role that personal history has played in the reception of Holt's work. Each of them will introduce a new set of propositions on the theme of artistic collaboration through a presentation of their independent work and research in an open discussion format with seminar participants. The discussion will be moderated by Alena J. Williams, Columbia University, New York.

Ines Schaber lives and works in Berlin. She studied fine arts at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin and architectural theory at Princeton University as a DAAD fellow. She is completing her doctorate in Visual Cultures/Center for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths in London on archival practices in image archives. Her work has been shown at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, Actar Gallery, Barcelona, and KW - Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Schaber was a lecturer / guest professor at a number of international institutions, including the Royal Academy in Copenhagen, the University of Arts in Berlin, Zeppelin University, and the Art Academy in Zurich.

Ginger Brooks Takahashi lives in North Braddock, Pennsylvania and Brooklyn, New York maintaining a social, project-based practice. She produced and performed in the live touring band MEN from 2008 - 2010. She is co-founder of LTTR, a queer and feminist art journal, and projet MOBILIVRE BOOKMOBILE project, a traveling exhibit of artist books and zines. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program. Her work has been presented in the context of exhibitions and programs at the Serpentine Gallery in London, documenta 12 in Kassel, Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto, and the New Museum in New York.

Alena J. Williams is the curator of Nancy Holt: Sightlines, the traveling exhibition on Holt's Land art, films, video, and related works from 1966 to 1980. She is a doctoral candidate in modern and contemporary art in Art History at Columbia University. Williams was a fellow in the postgraduate research group “Media of History – History of Media" at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and the recipient of the German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. Her publications include Nancy Holt: Sightlines (UC Press, 2011) and Light Is a Kind of Rhythm (merz&solitude, 2009).

Please note that this seminar is open to architects, artists, educators, and graduate and advanced undergraduate students only. Space is limited.