Friday, March 19, 2021, 7 pm ET
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Featuring two artists taking on the nature of time and transience, Squeaky Wheel is pleased to present this artist talk with our two Spring 2021 artist residents Hanae Utamura & Jacob Nelsen-Epstein. Both artists will be presenting and speaking to their previous and current projects, and engaging in a conversation with curator Ekrem Serdar.

During their residency, Hanae Utamura will be working on the poetic short film The Nuclear / Niagara Falls, which focuses on the history of Niagara River and Niagara Falls as the site of a toxic waste dumping ground, rooted in her research in Japan’s fraught relationship with nuclear power. Jacob Nelsen-Epstein will be working on Re-Virtualization, a book and hardware interface that utilizes the text from the book as a storage medium in lieu of a harddrive to draw attention to the impermanence of digital storage methods.

See more more information on their residency here.

Bios of the artists

Hanae Utamura is a Japanese visual artist based in Buffalo, New York. Utamura’s media include video, performance, installation, and sculpture. Negotiations and conflicts between the human and earth, and how all the varieties of the wills of life manifest, have been the central focus of her practice. She has been awarded Shiseido Art Egg Award, Art Omi residency, the Pola Art Foundation, UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary Award, and Axis/Florence Trust Award. She was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2019-2020, supported by Japanese Ministry of Culture, Japanese government as a part of Japan – United States Exchange Friendship Program in the Art. Image of Hanae Utamura by Peter Rosemann.

Jacob Nelsen-Epstein is a Buffalo based performer, software developer and multi-media artist specializing in works contemplating the intersections of technology, longevity, and consumer culture. He is attending SUNY Buffalo’s Library/Information Science graduate program, and has a background in media studies. Jacob has received awards working with the Institute for Aesthetic Modulation, for choreographed performances involving monster costumes made from reclaimed e-waste. Jacob has also won awards for musical submissions to Re/Mixed Media Festival, with media features in Do Androids Dance and Vice Magazine. Other previous works include attempts to physicalize software, by visualizing compiled code as printed images.

Workspace Residency is supported by generous support by the County of Erie and County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and individual members, businesses, and supporters.