Our department is co-sponsoring a lecture and mini-seminar by acclaimed Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal who is renowned for provoking dialogue about international politics and internal dynamics through high profile, technologically-driven art projects that employ the use of robotics, the internet, and photographic mobile mapping. For his 2007 installation, Domestic Tension, Bilal spent a month in a Chicago gallery with a paintball gun that people could shoot at him over the internet. Bilal’s work is constantly informed by the experience of fleeing his homeland and existing simultaneously in two worlds – his home in the “comfort zone” of the U.S. and his consciousness of the “conflict zone” in Iraq. Using his own body as a medium, Bilal continues to challenge our comfort zone with projects like 3rdi and and Counting.... He is the author of Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun (2008). His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; amongst others. He holds a BFA from the University of New Mexico and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently an Associate Arts Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. http://wafaabilal.com

Lecture: “Performing Change: Diaspora and Belonging” Thursday October 12 from 5-6:30 in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, 114 Bird Library.

Mini seminar: “Wafaa Bilal: On Art and Resistance” Friday October 13 from 10:00-11:30 in 304 Tolley (invitation and RSVP to follow closer to the date)