Talks
Arcadia Library Lecture: Rogue States and Unruly Archives with Stephanie Syjuco
Present Tense (Roll Call), 2025, installation view. Commissioned by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
When
Where
Perelman Building,
Perelman Auditorium
​In a time when historical information is actively being deleted, disappeared, or obfuscated, and competing visions of nationhood and citizenship are put forward, how do we critically engage with the archive as a contested site? Touching on recent projects that mine digital and physical archives across institutions, research-based artist Stephanie Syjuco reflects in this talk on what is at stake for re-remembering and re-narrating from collections and archives.Â
From examining colonial collections founded by the American empire's excursions overseas to commemorating localized, community archives that attempt to hold safe diasporic lineages, Syjuco’s practice reckons with the archive as a site that has always been replete with holes and blind spots. In the artist’s work, these cracks offer possibilities for creative slippages and engagement—including the production of counter-archives, new narratives, and resistant visions.
Things to Know:
- This is a hybrid program. You can register either for the in-person event or to watch it live via Zoom.
- There will be time for a Q&A at the end of the program.
- The program will be recorded. A link to the recording will be sent to everyone who registers for the virtual component of the program.
About the speaker:
Stephanie Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of exclusionary narratives of history and citizenship. Born in the Philippines, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, The Getty Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. She is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and resides in Oakland, California.
Questions or accommodation requests? Email [email protected].
Credit
The Arcadia Library Lecture is generously supported by the Arcadia Foundation.