Art+Process+Ideas: Liat Berdugo, Heesoo Kwon, Ranu Mukherjee

September 19 - December 3, 2023

The 2023 Art+Process+Ideas (A+P+I) exhibition features new work by artists-in-residence Liat Berdugo, Heesoo Kwon, and Ranu Mukherjee. These Bay Area artists share approaches to artmaking that engage innovative uses of technology and performance to explore issues including migration, personal and political power, and the environment from feminist perspectives. Amidst ongoing debates about the ethics of AI, and the introduction of Mills campus’ first Extended Reality lab and academic program, the work from these artists speaks directly to both global and hyper-local developments.

Liat Berdugo is an artist and writer whose work investigates embodiment, labor, and militarization in relation to capitalism, technological utopianism, and the Middle East. Her projects reflect different areas of her research, including decoding archived images of tree planting in Israel-Palestine to examine colonization, and using the artificial intelligence software ChatGPT to produce short plays and songs about the challenges of institutional change.

Heesoo Kwon is a multidisciplinary artist from South Korea currently based in the Bay Area. In 2017, Kwon initiated the autobiographical feminist religion Leymusoom as a framework to explore her family history and to create a utopian digital world in opposition to misogyny and patriarchy. Her hybrid videos, photographs, and installations combine archival family photographs and home videos with digital avatars and landscapes to create a freer and more empowered world for both ancestors and future generations.

Ranu Mukherjee’s new pieces map imaginary forests and mines to explore territories that are at once mythical, paradoxical, and at the frontlines of survival. She explores non-human agencies (such as rare earth elements and lithium) simultaneously with analogous psychological territories (such as digging, vulnerability, and the unknown.) Blending visual art and dance, the work includes inspiration from the history of modern dance at Mills and is an invitation to all visitors to physically explore and perform.

The A+P+I program was established in 2015 to support Bay Area artists who embrace experimentation and social consciousness in their work. The residency fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and provides opportunities for the Mills College at Northeastern University and wider Bay Area communities to interact, learn, and work with local contemporary artists.

The 2023 Art + Process + Ideas Artist Residency is supported through the generosity of the Agnes Cowles Bourne Fund for Special Exhibitions. Additional funding is provided by We Are the Voices, a Mellon Foundation Higher Learning funded project linking Mills College at Northeastern University students and faculty with poets and scholars working in Oakland and beyond.