Penny Siopis: In Conversation with Griselda Pollock and Jane Taylor

South African painter and filmmaker Penny Siopis will be in Leeds as the guest of the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies on 27 October.

17.00-18.30
Discussing painting – in conversation with Griselda Pollock and Jane Taylor.
Venue: Room B.08 in the Parkinson Building.

18.45 -19.00
Snack in the Student Common Room, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (University Road)

19.00-20.30
Penny Siopis will talk about her short films made with found footage. Venue: Room G.04 in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

This event is free and all are welcome.

About Penny Siopis

Penny Siopis was a Visiting Professor in Leeds in 1993-94 and has maintained contacts since then, including collaboration with Performance and Theatre Professor Jane Taylor. Art historian Griselda Pollock has written on her work both in response to the end of Apartheid and through a shared engagement with psychoanalysis and psychic life, which led to an exhibition at the Freud Museum on Shame.

Penny is an Honorary Professor at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, working in painting, film/video, photography and installation. What she calls the ‘poetics of vulnerability’ characterises all her explorations, from her earlier engagements with history, memory and migration to her later concerns with shame, violence and sexuality.

The booth at Frieze included Siopis’ latest video The New Parthenon currently premiering at the Taipei Biennial (until 5 February 2017). Continuing her interest in micro historical narratives, Siopis combines old anonymous 8mm home-movie footage with text and sound to meditate on the life a Greek man (her father?) and his experiences of war, migration, otherness and tensions with ‘The West’ in a way that resonates with global concerns today.

Siopis will be part of a major show opening at the British Museum on 27 October, South Africa: The Art of a Nation.