CARLA GANNIS & JUSTIN PETROPOLOUS
June 23, 2013
<legend> </legend>
On the walls of one room, Carla Gannis and Justin Petropoulous project text from an early history of Governors Island. On top of those words, Gannis elaborates digital drawings, also projected. And on top of those, participants can trace text and/or drawings using charcoal and oil pastels, which will remain on the walls when the projectors are shut off and the lights turned on. <legend> </legend> is a site specific exploration of the relationship between place and history, through “interpretative transcription.”
A recipient of fellowships from NYFA, the Ford Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institute, Carla Gannis has a broad history of engagements with writing in and about performative contexts. In 2018-19 she was artist-in-residence at BRIClab in Brooklyn, where she worked on developing the book for the opera, Golden Motors with Derek Bermel. Their lyrical work has been performed widely, including at Carnegie Hall, Joe’s Pub, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst in Denmark, The Institute for Advanced Study, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Walters holds a MFA/PHD in Poetry and Literature from Cornell University. She is the former Associate Dean of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons, The New School. Currently she serves as Director of the Nonfiction Concentration and Associate Professor of Writing, Nonfiction in the School of the Arts at Columbia University.
Justin Petropoulos is the author of two collections of poetry, Eminent Domain (Marsh Hawk Press 2011), selected by Anne Waldman for the 2010 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and <Legend> </Legend> (Jaded Ibis Press 2013), a collaborative work with multimedia artist, Carla Gannis. His poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Gulf Coast, Mandorla, and Portland Review. He is currently the Program Manager for the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University.