Author: Nour Marie-Kemi Acogny

Nour Acogny is currently a freshman student at New York University in the Liberal Studies Program. She intends to major in International Business and Management, with a minor in Computer Science. She grew up in London, England, to a Franco-Senegalese father and a Franco-Beninese mother. Her interests include fashion, contemporary hip-hop, novels, film, female leadership and traveling. Nour is passionate about languages, and is a native French speaker, fluent in english, studied Latin for two years, Ancient Greek for four, Spanish for six, is currently learning Italian and plans on learning both Chinese and Arabic in the future.

Artist Patricia Cronin at Villa La Pietra

Born in 1963 in Beverly, Massachusetts, Patricia Cronin was educated in several art schools, including Brooklyn College of The City University of New York for her M.F.A and Rhode Island College for her B.F.A. From solo exhibitions in various countries (including The Lab Gallery in Dublin, Ireland and La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy), to publications such as The Zenobia Scandal: A Meditation on Male Jealousy (2013), her work is internationally renowned and is becoming increasingly popular. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts (Deutsche Bank Fellow) Artist Fellowship in 2007, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize in Visual Art between 2006-2007. Read more

POP-UP SHOP and Opportunity to Meet the Harakat Sisters

Photos by the Harakat Sisters from the Harakat Sisters’ website

The Harakat sisters will be opening  a pop-up shop at the Middle East Now Festival this Friday, April 7th 2017. Born to a Moroccan father and a Lebanese mother, Nasrine and Sara Harakat have been designing jewellery from a young age. Sara and Nisrine, aged 24 and 20 respectively, study architecture and design in France. With the support of friends and family, they posted their jewellery creations on social media, generating a following that allowed them to sell their collections. Read more

Anthony Appiah On Why We Are Wrong About Identity

Kwame Anthony Appiah
Kwame Anthony Appiah

Born in London and raised in Ghana, Kwame Anthony Appiah is a multicultural individual who has lived through a multitude of experiences.

His father was a Ghanaian lawyer and politician, a Member of Parliament, an Ambassador and a President of the Ghana Bar Association. His mother was an English novelist and children’s write who was also active in the social, philanthropic and cultural life of his home town.

As a proud alumni of Cambridge University, he then went on to teach at some of the world’s top universities, including Harvard, Yale and Cornell. He has also been a Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University since 2014. He has delivered multiple talks on diverse topics (such as identity and religion) to various institutions across the globe and has published widely in African-American literary and cultural studies. In 1992, he won an award for his book In My Father’s House in which he explores the role of African and African-American intellectuals in determining and shaping African cultural life. Read more

A study of Nicole Miller, The Conductor

Photo by Timothy Schenck, courtesy of High Line Art The Conductor, Nicole Miller
From The Conductor, Nicole Miller

Nicole Miller, a Tucson, Arizona-born female artist released a seven-minute silent video in 2009 entitled The Conductor, a video documenting “individuals making a decision about how to represent themselves.” This piece was her very first solo exhibition, at LAXART.

Nicole Miller was born in 1982. Belonging to the ‘Millennial generation’, she grew up during the ‘digital explosion’, and maybe this can help us understand her decision to use an electronic art form for her project.

Simply by seeing images extracted from her video, you can get a sense of the preconceptions and bias people may have of the man portrayed. The man is seen jerking his head, seemingly undergoing body spasms and manic-like episodes, from states of extreme joy to extreme anger and/or pain. And the first impression the video usually makes is that of a mentally ill man undergoing a manic attack. Read more