To celebrate Pride month and the closing of the Value of Sanctuary: Building a House Without Walls, join us for a conversation between artists Gabriel Garcia Roman and Arlene Mejorado about community and resilience followed by a musical performance by bagpiper David Watson and cellist Alex Waterman on Francis Cape's Gathering of Utopian Benches in the Chapel of St. Columba. Arrive early to view the art before the event begins.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Gabriel García Román was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1973 and raised in Chicago. He received his B.A. in studio art at The City College of New York. García Román is a photo-based artist and craftsman currently living and working in New York City.

Arlene Mejorado is a photographer and artist based in Los Angeles, California. Currently, she is a Magnum Foundation fellow, teaching artist at Las Fotos Project, and a member of Women Photograph. Mejorado co-authored Femme Frontera which was awarded the 2018 Independent Photo Book award by the Lucie Foundation. As the daughter of migrants and a queer woman of color, she is inspired to build new visual narratives around migration, diaspora, gender, and culture with an emphasis on collaboration and experimentation.

Alex Waterman has created a diverse body of works including sound installations, television operas, film and video works, exhibitions, amateur choral works, radio and film scores, and solo performances as a cellist, electronic musician and storyteller. His installation works, films and music productions have been exhibited at the ICA London, Stonescape, Vilma Gold, The Kitchen, Miguel Abreu Gallery,Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, the Serpentine London, White Columns, the Swiss Institute, Kunstverein Amsterdam, CAC Bretigny, and the Bonnefantenmuseum. Yes, But is it Edible?: The Music of Robert Ashley for two more more voices, was released by New Documents in 2014. He has produced four other books with British typographer Will Holder: Agape, Between Thought and Sound, The Tiger’s Mind and in memoriam… Alex Waterman and Robert Ashley were artists in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. He built a television studio and installation space inside the Whitney Museum and produced three operas by Ashley. In November 2017 he presented his first solo opera at the Donaueschingen Musiktage in Germany.

David Watson is an experimental musician. A guitarist, bagpiper and advocate for intelligent listening. Che Chen writing in Other Music described his bagpiping as “long form tonal explorations that can be so otherworldly and engrossing that the slight wheeze of the windbag that comes at the end of each piece can be a startling and oddly necessary reminder that these sounds were created by human breath”. His work encompasses improvisation and composition. Also, Watson has an ongoing project creating processions and new-music in the context of walking. He founded and organized the WOrK series, which has presented more than fifty concerts of experimental work in New York since 2015.