A common question from respondents to the Pittsburgh Public Art Counts! survey was how can artists self-initiate projects? A thoughtful and fair question, self-organization can be a way to help artists create opportunities for themselves and others, develop a wider network, and reconsider what it means to work in the public realm. Brooklyn-based artists Nataša Prljević and Farideh Sakhaeifar will be leading this session and sharing their experiences as individual artists and as members of HEKLER, an artist-run platform and transnational collective that focuses on critical and experimental examinations of hospitality and conflict.

This session will be held online via Zoom.

Please note that this session will take place on a Monday.

About Nataša Prljevic
NATAŠA PRLJEVIĆ is an artist and cultural worker from Užice, Serbia based in Brooklyn, NY. Rooted in collage and assemblage practice, Prljević is committed to collaboration and collective work which center poetics and politics of conflict, diasporic intimacy, and art as a tool for rehearsal of transnational solidarity and imagination. In the past ten years Prljević worked and studied with art and cultural workers, educators, healers, activists, collectives, and organizations from all over the world. Prljević is one of the initiators of HEKLER, an artist-run platform and transnational collective that focuses on critical and experimental examination of hospitality and conflict.

About Farideh Sakhaeifar
Farideh Sakhaeifar is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Sakhaeifar’s work investigates the politics of conflict, collective history, and personal accounts. Since 2018 she has been working collaboratively as a member of HEKLER, an artist-run collaborative platform that fosters the critical examination of hospitality and conflict. She received her MFA from Cornell University (2011) and her BFA from Azad Art and Architecture University in Iran (2008).