University of Oregon 2026-27 Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research

In 2024, Aruna D'Souza published Imperfect Solidarities, a short book about artworks and practices that offer, in direct and indirect ways, examples of being in solidarity in ways that preserve individual and collective sovereignties. These moments in contemporary art—including those by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Stephanie Syjuco, Candice Breitz, and the feminist collective AIR Gallery in New York—allowed Souza to imagine creating momentary alliances in space with the goal of preserving and nurturing life, first and above all. This talk will add to that roster, drawing on artists and collectives around the world who allow us to envision a solidarity that does not require subsuming self in other, or absorbing other in self—an especially urgent project in a moment of rising global fascism.

Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, intersectional feminisms, and diasporic aesthetics. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and in numerous artist’s monographs and exhibition catalogues. Whitewalling: Art, Race, and Protest in 3 Acts was named one of the best art books of 2018 by the New York Times. Recent editorial projects include Linda Nochlin’s Making It Modern: Essays on the Art of the Now and Lorraine O’Grady’s Writing in Space 1973-2018; she co-curated the retrospective “Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And” at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. She is the recipient of the 2021 Rabkin Prize for art journalism and a 2019 Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. She was appointed the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art in 2022, and the W.W. Corcoran Professor of Social Engagement at the Corcoran School of Art, George Washington University, in 2022-2023. Her most recent book Imperfect Solidarities was published in 2024.