Alysse Stepanian
Alysse Stepanian is a Los Angeles–based and Iranian–born transmedia artist. She writes:
I received a grant for “Urban Ranch Project” (URP), an interspecies and intersectional activism arts venue on Facebook. URP debunks anthropocentric perspectives in the arts and facilitates the inclusion of the plight of nonhuman animals within discussions related to the systems of oppression in mainstream culture. “High Art” and popular culture cross-pollinate; by changing the consciousness of the creative people, the world can begin to change. This grant made the 2013 Guest Curator Series possible, which has expanded audience awareness of the project. URP has been inactive since June 2014, but its archives are continuously visited on Facebook. You can find my current work here. Some of my recent projects include: “Syria Planum: For Water for Oil” (2016) is the first edition of #MemoryoftheUniverse, a series of 3D animations of speculative fiction combined with current events. A half-woman, half-cow creature on Mars that is the embodiment of the memory of the universe, and is in process of becoming a “superhero,” witnesses the destructive human behavior: the Anthropocene, petro political and water wars, colonialism, drones and militainment, terrorism, refugees, and exploitation of all animals. #MemoryoftheUniverse observes and absorbs! (Nov. 2016): A solo performative presentation at Galerie DEUX [dø] in Marseille, France, during the opening of the month-long solo exhibition of the above-mentioned video. The accompanying text about interconnected oppressions was translated into French. “Nietzsche Was A Man”: I co-curated this video art exhibition featuring 20 Iranian women, and lectured about interconnected oppressions at three exhibition venues: Pori Art Museum (Finland, 2015), Malmö Konsthall (Sweden, 2014), and Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City, 2013). These lecture notes were translated into Spanish and Finnish for exhibition catalogs.
