Enjoy a complimentary cup of coffee and join Penn History of Art PhD and Penn Design MFA candidates for an intimate conversation inspired by the ICA exhibitions on view.

Asha Sheshadri, MFA candidate, leads a conversation inspired by the ICA exhibition Rodney McMillian: The Black Show about the history and contemporary engagement with science fiction in video art, architecture, and poetry. Through a consideration of a diverse range of works by Sun Ra, Ursula K. Le Guin, Archigram, and McMillian, participants will be invited to explore the various ways science fiction is employed alternately as a mode of feminist critique, to address the concept of the uncanny valley, and as a vehicle for Afrofuturism. Furthermore, we will ask how science fiction and speculative, thought (through a mythologization of the future) helps us to reflect upon contemporary social constructions and psychogeographies.

Register here.

Asha Sheshadri is a first-year MFA Candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Her current work involves the human voice as a medium, creative non-fiction, and experimental documentary strategies. She holds a BA from Boston University and has released sound works through Digitalis Ltd., Further Records, and most recently, Entr’acte Recordings. Her work has been displayed and performed at spaces including the Middlesex Lounge, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, SDSpace4Art, and the MIT List Visual Arts Center.