On Wednesday, October 3rd, ACC will hold its 55th Anniversary Gala honoring ACC’s 2017 JDR 3rd Award recipient Shen Wei (Dance, 1995) and two of ACC’s most steadfast advocates, David and Susan Rockefeller. The event, chaired by Wendy O'Neill and Mercedes Zobel, is as much a recognition of ACC’s longstanding commitment to promoting cultural exchange as it is a celebration of ACC’s global community of alumni and friends.
While ACC provides the resources, network, and programmatic planning that facilitates immersive cultural exchange, it is our fellows who live out ACC’s mission of deepening international dialogue, understanding, and respect both during their fellowship and long into the future. In celebrating this amazing community, the night will feature performances by four ACC alumni—Susie Ibarra, Kalidas Karmakar, Nina Kuo, and Yasuno Miyauchi.
We welcome you to learn more about their artistic journeys below:
Susie Ibarra (Music, 2007, 2018)
Susie Ibarra is a composer and percussionist who creates live and immersive music that explores rhythm, indigenous practices, and interactions between cities and the natural world. In 2007, Susie Ibarra received an ACC Fellowship to study indigenous music and document regional festivals in the Philippines. In 2018, she was granted her second ACC Fellowship in support of her project, Himalayan Glacier Soundscapes, An Acoustic Story on Climate Change. This research and installation work maps sound data from source to sink, from the Himalayas to the Ganges.
Kalidas Karmakar (Visual Art, 2006)
Kalidas Karmakar is one of Bangladesh’s most recognized contemporary artists. Trained at what was then the East Pakistan College of Arts and Crafts (currently University of Dhaka’s Faculty of Fine Arts) and at the Government College of Arts and Crafts in Calcutta, he began his artistic career in the early 1970s. His diverse body of work which features found objects, handmade paper, oil on canvas prints, have been widely exhibited throughout South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. In 2006, he received an ACC Fellowship to participate a residency at the PointB Worklodge in Brooklyn.
Nina Kuo (Visual Art, 2002)
Nina Kuo is a New York-based artist working in painting, mixed media, photography, and video. In 2002, Kuo received an ACC Fellowship to study Zen painting in Japan, developing the foundation for a new series of paintings. Working in Asia led Kuo to research the ongoing evolution of Asian cultures and has given her access to translated icons hidden in her own works. The figures and landscapes in her work represent the multicultural perspective of an Asian scholar and artist living in the West but looking to the East for spirituality.
Yasuno Miyauchi (Music, 2015, 2017)
Yasuno Miyauchi is a composer from Japan whose music takes inspiration from the human body, traditional music, and the natural world. She is also the founder and artistic director of Tsumugine, an all-female performance group. During a six-month ACC New York Fellowship in 2016, Miyauchi collaborated with other ACC grantees to develop a multidisciplinary performance piece called I-Land. This project deepened her interest in looking to Asia for inspiration. In 2017, she received a two-month ACC Fellowship to research the contemporary performing arts scene and aboriginal musical cultures in Taiwan.
To join us at ACC’s 55th Anniversary Gala on October 3rd, please see our gala website for tickets.
Below: Honorees David and Susan Rockefeller and JDR 3rd Award recipient Shen Wei (Dance, 1995)