Reception and Artist Talk: Friday, May 12 7-10PM
Performance: Friday, June 9 at 8PM
Torpedo Factory Art Center presents the Target Gallery solo exhibition recipient, Alexander D’Agostino with “A Shrine to the Forgotten“. Alexander’s visual and performance works often become requiems for those Witch-hunted and accused for disrupting the “moral fabric” of society, who’s stories are often packed away in some forgotten storage facility of collective memory. In this exhibition Alexander invites the viewer to imagine the discovery of missing pages of a sixteenth century book of spells, along with other documents and objects found in the Torpedo Factory when it was vacant after being used as a storage facility for the FBI and Smithsonian Institute. This site specific installation in the Target Gallery consists of large textile prints, artist books, and sculptural works that explore hidden and erased stories, witch-hunts, book-bans, and “don’t say gay” bills that will tie the Torpedo Factories’ unique history with Alexander’s practice of engaging spaces with queer history, myth-making, and ritual.
Alexander will also be having a virtual talk about artistic research with the Folger Shakespeare Library with Folger fellow Mindy Stricke on Tuesday, June 6 at 6PM. Register for the talk HERE.
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About the Jury Panel
Hoesy Corona is an uncategorized queer Latinx artist of Mexican descent living and working in the United States. He creates work across a variety of media spanning installation, performance, and video. He develops otherworldly narratives centering marginalized individuals in society by exploring a process-based practice that investigates what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few. He choreographs large scale performances and installations that oftentimes silently confront and delight viewers with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Reoccurring themes of queerness, race/class/gender, nature, isolation, celebration, and the climate crisis are present throughout his work. Hoesy has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, and public spaces in the United States and abroad.
He lived in Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin, before moving to Baltimore, MD in 2005 to establish a professional practice in the arts. He is a recent GKFF Artist Fellow 2019 & 2020 in Tulsa, OK. And is a former Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow 2017-2018 in Washington, DC. He is a current Nicholson Project Artist in Residence in SouthEast DC and is a resident artist at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD where he lives and works.
Laila Abdul-Hadi Jadallah is a seasoned arts administrator, writer and exhibition producer, and curator with more than 15 years of experience. She is the Director of Programs at the Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC), where she oversees the overall strategic and executive direction of QAIC programs and exhibitions. Prior to joining QAIC, she was the inaugural Managing Director of Washington Studio School and has previously held senior-level positions at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Art Fraud Insights, and International Arts and Artists, where she worked with numerous arts and cultural partners to lead communications, program development and manage more than 20 major exhibitions. As an independent art consultant and arts writer, she has worked with numerous organizations, partners, and artists to produce or curate exhibitions and programs.
Past projects include curating Art In Isolation: Creativity In the Time of Covid-19 (Middle East Institute, 2020/2021) and Through Their Eyes: Moments Photographed by Syrian Children (US Fund for UNICEF, 2017), and producing Tania El-Khoury’s Gardens Speak (Middle East Institute/National Building Museum, 2016). As a researcher, Jadallah is interested in cultural diplomacy; the alternative histories and contributions of diaspora communities from the Middle East and North Africa to the art historical canon; and the new visual languages introduced by contemporary MENA artists’. Her most recent projects include curating More Than Your Eyes Can See: Contemporary Photography from the Arab World an exhibition organized in partnership with Tribe Magazine at the Middle East Institute.
She has presented about her work, the role of arts in education, and as a tool for social change and cultural diplomacy at programs organized by Montgomery College, The Middle East Institute, ArtTable, Inc., Hillyer Art Space, and the College Arts Association Annual Meeting. She recently served on the Executive Committee of the Washington, D.C.-region chapter of ArtTable, Inc. and co-chaired State of Art5/DC: A Conversation at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2019). Jadallah is a member of ArtTable Inc., Arts Administrators of Color, the Brokering Intercultural Exchange Group, and Museum HUE. She was in the inaugural cohort at Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics’ Student Fellows program (2020/2021) and a 2017 and 2019 D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellow.
Claudia Watts has been a lover and patron of the arts since childhood. In 2016, Claudia assumed the role of strategic planning and partnerships at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM). In this role, she co-authored the museum’s case for revitalization with the former director Lori D. Yarrish. Claudia also worked with community organizations, educational institutions, and artists to create programs that supported museum initiatives. She collaborated with ESPN’s The Undefeated to produce an All-Star 2018 pop-up exhibition and developed a community documentation program for teens that received funding from Coca-Cola. She also commissioned artist, Adrienne Gaither, to create a mural inspired by ACM’s collection for the newly renovated community lounge. In December of 2020 Claudia accepted a new position as the Director of Culture at Eaton Hotel.
In addition to her work in the arts, she served as the Managing Editor of the Washington Informer’s Bridge Magazine, an arts and culture-focused publication, from 2018 – 2020. Claudia continues to freelance as an arts writer and curatorial consultant.
Claudia received her B.B.A. with a concentration in marketing from the Howard University School of Business in 2010 and her M.S. in marketing from the University of Maryland Global Campus in 2019. She will attend American University as the Caroly Small Alper fellow in fall of 2022 while pursuing her M.A. in Art History.
