'The Commons' Lecture Series: Artist, Filmmaker and Writer Michelle Dizon presents 'Why Are They Looking At Me?'

CalArts, Tatum Lounge

CRITICAL STUDIES / INSTITUTE: "The Commons" Lecture Series is a yearlong series of talks, debates, and open discussions with prominent thinkers and artists curated and organized by alumni of the MA in Aesthetics and Politics, CalArts School of Critical Studies.

In this first session, artist, filmmaker and writer Michelle Dizon presents "Why Are They Looking At Me?" All schools are welcome to attend.

About Michelle Dizon

Artist, filmmaker, and writer, Michelle Dizon, was born and raised in Los Angeles as part of the Philippine diaspora.  Her video installations, films, and writing focus on subjectivity as it intersects with the histories of colonialism and its legacies of immigration, diaspora, and globalization.  Currently, she is at work on a feature-film and large-scale installation entitled Perpetual Peace that addresses US imperialism, militarization, globalization, and war in the Philippines.  She is also revising a book entitled Vision in Ruins that explores visuality in an era of neoliberal globalization.  

She has exhibited and lectured internationally at venues such as the Center for Feminist Studies in Zagreb, Croatia; Jeu de Paume in Paris, France; Caixaforum in Barcelona, Spain; Casa Asia in Madrid, Spain; Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark; Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manila, Philippines; Vargas Museum in Manila, Philippines; Para/Site Art Space in Hong Kong, China; Galleryloop in Seoul, Korea; Tate Modern in London, England; Human Rights Center in Berkeley, United States; CUE Art Foundation in New York, United States; Vox Populi in Philadelphia, United States; and REDCAT Gallery in Los Angeles, United States. She has received fellowships from the Human Rights Center, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the University of California Initiative for Research in the Arts, and the Fulbright Association.

Dizon is the Co-Chair of the Visual Art Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and Visiting Faculty in the Photography and Media Program at the California Institute of the Arts.  She earned an MFA in Art with emphasis in Interdisciplinary Studio from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric with designated emphases in Film and Women, Gender, and Sexuality from the University of California, Berkeley.  She lives and works between Los Angeles, California and Davao City, Mindanao.

"The Commons" Lecture Series

The series is an open forum for student-centered discussion and debate, opinion and exchange. What is "The Commons"—both at CalArts today, and more broadly in the fields of aesthetics and politics?

"The Commons" Lecture Series is independently curated and organized by Linette Park and Manuel Shvartzberg—alumni of CalArts MA in Aesthetics and Politics, a program that encourages new interrogations of the expanded field of the arts through readings of texts, artworks, group discussion and a rich calendar of public events. For more info, visit the MA in Aesthetics and Politics website.