Join us for artist Michael Rakowitz: In Conversation to discuss archaeological histories, destruction of cultural property and displacement with Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History, Eleanor Robson (UCL) and Dr Guy D. Middleton, Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University. Chaired by Baltic Professor Andrea Phillips (Northumbria University).
The Waiting Gardens of the North is a major new project responding to conflict by, figuratively and literally, nurturing a community and an evolving indoor garden landscape. Commissioned by Baltic in partnership with the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund.
*There is no charge to attend this event, and we encourage donation tickets. If you're unable to attend the event, we are unable to refund your donation.
Michael Rakowitz (b. 1973, Long Island, NY) is an Iraqi-American artist based in Chicago, working at the intersection of problem-solving and troublemaking. His work has appeared in venues worldwide including dOCUMENTA (13), P.S.1, MoMA, MassMOCA, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Palais de Tokyo, the 16th Biennale of Sydney, the 10th and 14th Istanbul Biennials, Sharjah Biennial 8, Tirana Biennale, National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt, Transmediale 05, FRONT Triennial in Cleveland, and CURRENT: LA Public Art Triennial.
He was awarded the 2018-2020 Fourth Plinth commission in London’s Trafalgar Square. He is the recipient of the 2020 Nasher Prize; the 2018 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts; a 2012 Tiffany Foundation Award; a 2008 Creative Capital Grant; a Sharjah Biennial Jury Award; a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Grant in Architecture and Environmental Structures; the 2003 Dena Foundation Award, and the 2002 Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO.
Solo projects and exhibitions include Creative Time, Tate Modern in London, The Wellin Museum of Art, MCA Chicago, Lombard Freid Gallery and Jane Lombard Gallery in New York, SITE Santa Fe, Galerie Barbara Wien in Berlin, Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, Malmö Konsthall, Tensta Konsthall, and Kunstraum Innsbruck, and Waterfronts - England’s Creative Coast.
Eleanor Robson is a Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of many award-winning publications on the cuneiform cultures of ancient Iraq and its neighbours. With colleagues across Iraq she runs the philanthropically-funded Nahrein Network, a long-running interdisciplinary collaboration that promotes Iraqi-led research on the ways in which history, heritage, and humanities can contribute to better social, economic, cultural, and/or climatic conditions in Iraq today.
Guy D. Middleton is a Teaching Fellow at Northumbria University and a Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Newcastle University. His books include Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths (2017), Collapse and Transformation: The Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the Aegean (ed. 2020), and Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Palaeolithic to the Byzantines (2023). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Andrea Phillips is currently Baltic Professor and Director of the BxNU Institute which organises the partnership between Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and Northumbria University. Previous to this, Phillips has held Chairs at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg, and Goldsmiths, University of London. Phillips is an arts organiser, writer and teacher. Phillip's practice in these roles focusses on the possibility of reorganising arts education and cultural institutions through mechanisms and politics of financial, social and aesthetic dissensus and redistribution, and over the past decade, theorising the idea of devaluation as an anti-value paradigm within contemporary art and its spheres.
