Speech Acts

Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo: Lady Liberty

Associate Professor Carlos Motta speaks with Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo—also known in the art world as Puppies Puppies— an artist who moves fluidly across performance, sculpture, installation, and community activism. Jade's work questions notions of what is and isn't art, blurs the line between the personal and the public, and explores how identity is shaped by the commodities and media we consume. Drawing on the emotional resonance of found objects and shared experiences, she has built a body of work that grapples with love, mortality, power, visibility, and what it means to exist—all while channeling the art world's resources back into her trans and gender non-conforming community. What began as a deliberately anonymous practice has transformed into an autobiographical and politically urgent voice. Among her career highlights is her inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the 9th Berlin Biennale, and the 60th Venice Biennale.

Macon Reed: Heart and Teeth

Visiting Assistant Professor Langdon Graves speak to Macon Reed, a New Orleans-based artist working in sculpture, video, painting, and social practice, for projects that bridge participatory approaches with intensive object-making and research. Their work has been shown at venues such as Transmediale Vorspiel (Berlin), La Patinoire Royale (Brussels), the University of New South Wales Gallery (Sydney), Wattis Center for Contemporary Arts (San Francisco), Museum of Art and Design NYC, Chicago Underground Film Festival, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans). Reed studied Physical Theater at Dah International Theatre School (Belgrade), Radio Documentary at Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (Maine), and Socially-Engaged Arts at The Kitchen (NYC). They've attended residencies and fellowship programs at Royal Academy of Arts (London), Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology, Amherst College, Center for Craft (North Carolina), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Reed's practice creates spaces for collective imagination: opportunities to envision solutions to shared concerns, inspire collective action, and connect dots between seemingly divergent histories and experiences.

Taja Cheek: Sonic Rapture

Associate Professor and artist Carlos Motta speaks with Taja Cheek, a Brooklyn-born curator and musician based in New York City. Taja is presently Artistic Director of Performance Space New York, a radical interdisciplinary performance institution in the East Village, founded in 1980 as PS122 and is also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who frequently records and performs under the name L’Rain. Taja was guest curator for the 2024 Whitney Biennial performance program and led performance programs at MoMA PS1, including Warm Up, a summer outdoor music series that the museum has hosted in its courtyard since 1998, and Sunday Sessions, an interdisciplinary performance series. As a curator Taja has championed the creation of new performance works and has worked closely with artists for many years. Experimental and emotive, her music explores composition and structure and addresses themes of grief, identity, emotion and experience.