Join Eriola Pira—curator at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School in a scintillating conversation—with Loreto Garín Guzmán and Federico Zukerfeld of Etcétera on the aesthetics of protest, the politics of performance and what it means to present collective, embodied artistic practice in a globalized—yet fractured—world. In situating lived experience at the centre of their creative explorations, Etcétera’s Guzmán and Zukerfeld call attention to the fundamental interconnectedness between human, animal and plant life forms in their MOCA Toronto “Shift Key” presentation Letter for Buen Vivir. Through a use of pantomime and humour, Etcétera call attention to what has now become a preternatural reliance between human existence and the natural world, elevating the seemingly mundane into critical points of ethical inquiry.

About the Speakers

Eriola Pira is curator at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. Most recently, as Director of Programs, Pira led Art in General’s international collaborations, residencies, public events and fellowship programs building on her professional networks and experiences as Program Director and Curator at the artist-founded NARS Foundation, as Program Director for The Foundation for Culture and Society, where she led a network and exchange program between 12 art organizations throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the US. In this capacity, she also organized a number of international exhibitions, publications and symposia, and created a Curatorial Fellowship. A native of Albania, Pira has an M.A. in Visual Culture Theory from New York University and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Global Cultural Leadership Fellowship, and a Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship.

Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 it has been led by co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Chile) and Federico Zukerfeld (Argentina). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist Movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials such as the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014), Athens (2013), Istanbul (2009), and Taipei (2008), they often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. In 2015, they received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands. From 2020-2022 Etcétera is the Boris Lurie Fellow, at the Vera List Center, The New School with their fellowship project, NEO-EXTRA-ACTIVISM, Protocols for Buen Vivir. Their work has been recognized for its denouncement of human rights and environmental abuses through theatrical and poetic actions and statements often exercised at personal risk.

About Between Us

Between Us is a new public programme series where informal conversations delve into the Museum’s online and physical exhibitions. The discussions will emphasize culturally-rooted creative practice and the aesthetics of social engagement to ask: “How do we know ourselves, and the world around us, artistically?”