California Museum of Photography
Sweeney Art Gallery
Culver Center of the Arts
University of California, Riverside
For immediate release, May 15, 2013
UCR’s Program of Global Studies &
UCR ARTSblock presents
Moving Matters:
The Arts of Serial Migration
Workshop:
Tuesday, May 28, 2013, 1-4 PM
Free Admission
RIVERSIDE, Calif.—On May 28th, 2013, Moving Matters: The Arts of Serial Migration Workshop will
occur at UCR ARTSblock in the Hammond Dance Studio and the Barbara and Art Culver Center of
the Arts. This workshop brings together visual artists, dancers, actors, musicians and creative
writers to respond to Moving Matters: Paths of Serial Migration, Susan Ossman’s new book about
people who have lived in several countries. Working through art to respond to the text but also what
any book inevitably leaves out, they react to debates on cosmopolitanism, address the politics of
mobility and offer commentary on the transnational continuities of social life and self, evoking their
own experiences of living with several homelands. Their performances and presentations will be
followed by a discussion. The workshop will serve as a basis for developing a template for similar
events to be held around the world, leading to the production of a website and documentary film.
The workshop will alternate between performances and discussion among several artists who are
serial migrants. The workshop will be videotaped and serve as a basis for developing a template for
similar events in the future. This Riverside event will serve as a template for workshops in Paris,
Singapore, Amsterdam, Bogota London, leading to a transnational discussion among those who
have settled in several countries and to the production of a documentary film.
Susan Ossman, UCR Professor in Anthropology, who authored Moving Matters: Paths of Serial
Migration, said of the workshop: “We hope to instigate traveling workshops on the same topic that
the performers – or different sets of performers – can take to London, Istanbul, or Bogota. These
will lead to the collection of stories and performances of serial migration that may prompt further
writing, performances or artworks by those who participate in these events. By working through art
to respond to what the book says, but also what any book inevitably leaves out, we open up the
project to further forms of research and new audiences. The project also suggests an original way
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California Museum of Photography
Sweeney Art Gallery
Culver Center of the Arts
University of California, Riverside
of generating cross-disciplinary, transnational conversations that bridge the social sciences, the
humanities, and the arts.”
About Susan Ossman:
Susan Ossman is Professor in Anthropology at University of California, Riverside, and an artist. She
has made her home in France, Morocco, the UK and the USA. She currently teaches at UCR where
she directs the Global Studies Program. Her latest book is Moving Matters: Paths of Serial
Migration.
About the Participants:
Alexandru Balesescu: Life wiggles. Everything that is alive moves. So do people. Movement is the
natural state. The only thing un-natural are borders. Fear keeps them up. Fear is frozen, immobile,
paralyzed. Violence is fear in disguise. Alexandru Balesescu is alive. He is co-founder of
subliant/3:14. He keeps moving.
Paulo C. Chagas: A Brazilian composer, active in Europe, Brazil, and the United States. He is
currently professor of Composition at the University of California, Riverside and Music Department
Chair. A very versatile composer, Chagas has written over 100 works of vocal, instrumental
and electroacoustic music. He is also a prolific author of books and articles on musical semiotics,
aesthetics and theory.
Erith Jaffe-Berg: An associate professor of theatre at the University of California at Riverside,
where she also co-chairs the Minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. She is the Author of The
Multilingual Art of Commedia dell’Arte (Legas, 2009) and has published articles in Early Theatre,
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Quaderni d’Italinistica, Quaderni di Studi Arabi,
Scripta Mediterranea, Text & Presentation, and various other journals and edited collections. She is
currently completing a book manuscript titled Mediterranean Cartographies in Commedia dell’ Arte.
She is a member of the Son of Semele Ensemble, an LA based theatre company.
Barbara James: homes left behind: Fargo, ND/ Virginia Beach, VA/ Naples, Italy/ Haddenfield, MA/
Liverpool, NY/ Newark, DE/ Richmond, VA/ Davao City, Philippines/ San Francisco, CA/ Alma-Aty,
Kazakhstan/ Ashgabat, Turkmenistan/ London, England/ Basel, Switzerland/Riverside, CA.
Portfolio: Friends who became family/ wonderful memories / 3 fascinating adult children. valuable
items: computer with scanned photos, diary of handmade quilts / best friend and husband.
Stephen James: A dual American-British national. Born in the United States, Stephen began his
migratory journey at the age of 18 months, spending the next 13 years in Vietnam and completing
secondary school in Taiwan. He and his wife Barbara raised three children, living and working on
the continents of Asia, North America and Europe over the past 30 years. He calls London, England
home, but currently lives and works in Riverside, CA as a consultant in Intercultural
Communication.
Tabassum “Ruhi” Khan: A wanderer, story teller, and filmmaker who has found inspiration in
movement. At first following her engineer father around India and Middle-East and then her own
calling which took me through clearing houses such as Discovery Channel, National Geographic
Channel, and STAR TV from Washington DC, to New Delhi, to Hong Kong as a producer, director,
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California Museum of Photography
Sweeney Art Gallery
Culver Center of the Arts
University of California, Riverside
and channel manager. Currently she is an academic based in Southern California, mapping the
story of the inevitability of change and the movement engendered by globalization which sweeps
away even those imagined as inert and unchangeable.
George Marcus: Came to the University of California, Irvine, eight years ago, after many years
leading the Department of Anthropology, Rice University, especially through the transdisciplinary
period (1980s-mid 1990s) of excitement about new theories and critiques of culture. All along
and particularly now, he has been interested in the interfaces--some pursued, some imagined,
some barely conceived--between art performance, in its various genres, and its affinities with the
pursuit of anthropological research. These have been a key concern of the Center for Ethnography
which he founded when he moved to UCI, in 2005.
Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein: Born and raised in Colombia. She lived in Germany and Mexico before
immigrating to the United States in 1987. She studied Fine Arts and Music in Colombia, and
received an M.F.A. from James Madison University. She is the current chair of the Art Department
and director of the Brandstater Gallery at La Sierra University in Riverside. Her art deals with
emigration, displacement, exploitation, violence and abuse, and implores viewers to confront the
convoluted inequalities of our modern world. In layered mixed media, Mejia-Krumbein creates
figures and faces charged with emotions that mirror the layers and complexities of the issues she
depicts.
Noha Mellor: A native Egyptian, who resided in Denmark before moving to the UK. She is
Professor of Media at Bedfordshire University, UK and the author of several books about
Arab media, most recently Arab Journalists in Transnational Media.
Gareth Stanton: An anthropologist and media academic who has worked in Morocco, Gibraltar and
Bangladesh. Taking inspiration from Susan Ossman's innovative treatment of the serial migrant, he
re-evaluates a trip he took around Ghana with his aging father who was revisiting the country in
2011 for the first time in fifty years.
Natalie Zervou: A dancer and a PhD student in Critical Dance Studies at the University of
California, Riverside. Aside from Dance she also has a degree in Political Science, as well as an
MA in “Dance Cultures, Histories and Practices”. Currently her research interests concern the
transnational aspects of Greek modern dance and its relation to discourses of Hellenism and
institutionalized conceptions of national identity.
About UCR ARTSblock
University of California, Riverside, has recently brought together its three premier art institutions to
create a new cultural complex: UCR ARTSblock. ARTSblock is composed of the California Museum
of Photography, the Sweeney Art Gallery, and the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts.
Located on a single block in adjacent historical buildings in downtown Riverside, easily accessible
to the public as well as the campus, ARTSblock's mission is to provide a cultural presence,
educational resource, community center and intellectual meeting ground for the university and the
community. ARTSblock's programs investigate the art of our time, media arts, and the history
and practice of photography through exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, artist
residencies, permanent collections, and creative laboratories. ARTSblock presents significant
national and international art and photography, and showcases UCR student artwork and regional
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California Museum of Photography
Sweeney Art Gallery
Culver Center of the Arts
University of California, Riverside
artists. ARTSblock's activities embody University of California, Riverside's commitment to
broadly based public education and cutting-edge research. ARTSblock offers innovative programs
that engage diverse audiences, nourish the imagination and challenge assumptions.
Visitor Information and Press Inquiries:
UCR ARTSblock is located at 3824 & 3834 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92501, and includes three
venues: California Museum of Photography, Culver Center of the Arts, and Sweeney Art Gallery,
which are open Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5:00pm, plus 6:00pm-9:00pm for First Thursday
ArtWalks. Admission is $3.00, which includes entry to all three venues, and is free during First
Thursday ArtsWalk (6pm-9pm). For film screenings, Culver Center opens 30 minutes prior to the
start time. http://artsblock.ucr.edu.
Press Inquiries: Leslie Gerretse, (951) 827-1467, leslie.gerretse@ucr.edu
Image, page 1: Book cover for Moving Matters: Paths of Serial Migration, Susan Ossman’s new
book which features one of Ossman’s paintings.
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