March 26, 4:00 PM–5:30 PM

A performative lecture by “In this place where the guest rests” exhibiting artist Divya Mehra will take place at UConn – Stamford, MPR (room 108) on Monday, March 26 4:00 – 5:30 pm. This event is Co-sponsored by UConn-Stamford Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Department. It is free and open to the public.

Divya Mehra’s performative lecture explores memory, race, death, and the service industry in a series of non-linear short stories and poetics.  The performance, as well as her overall practice, often asks “how do we exist within the crushing indifference of our day to day?” Working in sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, video, and most recently film, Divya Mehra is known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium, and site. Through an acerbic tone, she addresses the long-term effects of colonization and institutional racism. Re-contextualizing references found in music, literature, and current affairs, she contends with contemporary expressions of societies continuously formed by their colonial roots. Mehra’s work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings, notably with Creative Time, MoMA PS1, MTV, and The Queens Museum of Art (New York), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Artspeak (Vancouver), Art Metropole, and The Images Festival (Toronto), The Beijing 798 Biennale (Beijing), Bielefelder Kunstverein (Bielefeld), and Latitude 28 (Delhi). Mehra holds an MFA from Columbia University and is represented in Toronto by Georgia Scherman Projects.

Photo: Kegan McFadden