The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art Announces Spandita Malik: Meshes of Resistance and Elisa Harkins: Teach Me a Song

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The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts presents two new exhibitions, Spandita Malik: Meshes of Resistance and Elisa Harkins: Teach Me a Song, to be displayed April 5 through July 20.

Spandita Malik is a New York-based visual artist from India whose work is concerned with the current global socio-political state of affairs, emphasizing women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik’s exhibition Meshes of Resistance will feature work from her ongoing Jāḷī series, featuring photographs of women in India Malik has connected with through self-help centers for domestic and gender-based violence. Malik prints these portraits, created in the women’s homes and personal spaces, onto fabric specific to the region. The women then embroider their portraits in any way they choose, taking agency over their ultimate representation and artistically collaborating with Malik. Specializing in process-based photography, Malik’s work in expanded documentary and social practice emanates from the idea of decolonizing the eye and aesthetic surrounding documentary photography of India. With work exhibited worldwide, Malik was named ‘Ones to Watch 2020’ by the British Journal of Photography and has garnered several awards, including The 30: New and Emerging Photographers Award in 2022.

Elisa Harkins is an Oklahoma-based Cherokee/Muscogee Native American artist and composer whose work is concerned with translation, language preservation and Indigenous musicology, using the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture and the body as her tools. In collaboration with Crisp-Ellert Art Museum at Flagler College and The New Gallery at Austin Peay State University, Harkins will display her ongoing project Teach Me a Song for the first time in its entirety at the Halsey Institute, a multifaceted work structured on a series of exchanges wherein Harkins invites collaborators to teach her a song. With these song recordings, which may be ceremonial, religious, rock & roll, electronic, etc., Harkins’ practice of nation-to-nation sharing and trading music aims to decolonize the traditions of Indigenous musicology. In addition, the Halsey Institute is thrilled to co-present two performances of Harkins’s Wampum ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ with Spoleto Festival USA; purchase tickets HERE. Harkins’ work has notably been exhibited at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, documenta 14, Hammer Museum, Heard Museum and Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Halsey Institute will host an opening reception for the two new exhibitions on Friday, April 5 from 6:30-8 p.m. The event is open to the public and free to members; a $5 donation is suggested for all not yet-members upon entry. For a more in-depth look into the works, the Halsey will host free Artist Talk sessions with Malik on April 6 at 2 p.m. and Harkins on June 1 at 2 p.m.

“We are ecstatic to bring the work of Spandita Malik and Elisa Harkins to Charleston,” says Director & Chief Curator of the Halsey Institute Katie Hirsch. “Each exhibition features a stunning new body of work by these two rising artists. Together, Meshes of Resistance and Teach Me a Song reflect on structures of power and representation in highly collaborative projects. Malik and Harkins give such joyous respect to the individuals and cultures featured in the work. This results in two exhibitions that are not only visually beautiful but moving and broadening.”

For more information on upcoming events, including tours and memberships, visit halsey.cofc.edu.