Diverse Discourse Lecture: Astria Suparak

Astria Suparak has curated exhibitions, screenings, and performance and music events for art spaces, film festivals, and academic venues internationally, including PS1, The Kitchen, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Eyebeam, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, and The Liverpool Biennial, as well as for non-art spaces such as roller-skating rinks, elementary schools, sports bars, and ferry boats.

Suparak was director of the Pratt Institute Film Series (1997-2000) and Syracuse University’s Warehouse Gallery (2006-2007). As the director and curator of the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University (2008-2014) she curated Keep It Slick: Infiltrating Capitalism with The Yes Men, the first solo exhibition of the internationally renowned culture-jamming group; Whatever It Takes: Steelers Fan Collections, Rituals, and Obsessions, which explored sports fanaticism as a significant form of cultural production; and Alien She, on the lasting impact of the global punk feminist movement Riot Grrrl, among other exhibitions.

Described as prescient and “visually and conceptually stunning,” Suparak’s work has been critically acclaimed by The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Artforum, Rhizome, The Village Voice and LA Weekly for its innovative curatorial approaches, “savvy political consciousness,” unique contribution to local and larger cultural spheres, and ability to bridge diverse audiences.