About

The Free Exchange On Tour takes free, open discussions into the community. Thrapston has a famous historical link to the family of George Washington, the first president of the USA. This livestreamed talk takes place in St James’ Church which bears the Washington family crest and will feature three American-born speakers discussing the role of democracy in art as well as human culture and society in general:

Anna Brownsted, Jessica Harby & Fath Davis Ruffins

Please register your attendance here: art-culture-domecracy.eventbrite.co.uk

Watch the livestream here: http://www.fermynwoods.co.uk/current-programme/free-exchange/live-stream/

Anna Brownsted is a Cambridge-based artist who works with sound, text, installation and encounter to make interventions into the public realm. Fascinated by the dynamics of trust, uncertainty and possibility, her practice explores the space between fiction and reality. Merging the unexpected with the everyday, her work negotiates relationships between structure, experience, narrative and participation. Recent work has been shown at the British Museum, The Old Vic Tunnels, Battersea Arts Centre, University College London, Cambridge Junction, Art Language Location, and with the Forest Fringe Travelling Sounds Library. Anna trained at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she currently curates Collisions, the Research Degrees’ annual festival of practice-based research.

Jessica Harby was born in 1980 in Oak Lawn, Il, USA and studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her practice encompasses drawing, installation, film and sound and mixes the delicate, the brutal the absurd and the serious. Often using humour to address uncomfortable ideas, she has recently explored the importance of cows in the history of art galleries, the overblown masculinity of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face, and why Donald Trump exists. Jessica is co-creator of the zine Tappa Tappa Tappa and is one of six artists chosen by Contemporary Visual Arts Network East Midlands for their two-year project Document. In 2017, her work will be included in NN Contemporary Art’s Five Years Season. Jessica lives and works in Northampton, UK.

Fath Davis Ruffins is Curator at National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution – and will be joining the discussion live from USA. She is a specialist in ethnic imagery in popular culture and African-American cultural history. Ruffins has curated or consulted on several major exhibitions dealing with the African-American experience, including Tavis Smiley’s America I AM exhibition and one of the permanent exhibitions at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, From Slavery to Freedom. Her most recent project was a project director and chief curator for Our American Journey: Many Voices, One Nation. National Museum of American History.

Website

Booking Link