Art and Activism

Shey Rivera, AS220’s artistic director, will share the specific practices and knowledge gained through their community-driven creative practice over the years, with presentations by 2018 Digital Media Fellows Lauren Valley and Jessica Thompson about their work and practice. Topics include: the intersection of digital media, civic engagement, + community forums, response and healing through creative practice, and how to navigate institutions as an artist.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi-genre artist and arts manager. Rivera’s work is at the intersection of art/culture, digital media, and civic engagement. As an arts manager, Rivera engages with art and culture as a catalyst for social change through placekeeping, community-driven design, cross-sector partnerships, and creative industries. As an artist, Rivera is active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations spam several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. A current key project is FANTASY ISLAND, an immersive and interdisciplinary body of work reflecting upon the debt crisis in Puerto Rico. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico. sheyrivera.com

Jessica Thompson is a media artist working in sound, performance and mobile technologies. Her practice investigates the ways that sound reveals spatial and social conditions within cities, and how the creative use of urban data can generate new modes of citizen engagement. Her work has shown in exhibitions and festivals such as the International Symposium of Electronic Art (San Jose, Dubai, Vancouver), the Conflux Festival (New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen), (in)visible Cities (Winnipeg), Beyond/In Western New York (Buffalo), New Interfaces in Musical Expression (Oslo), Audible Edifices (Hong Kong), Artists’ Walks (New York) and Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence), as well as in publications such as Canadian Art, c Magazine, Acoustic Territories, and the Leonardo Music Journal. She has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is an Assistant Professor in Hybrid Practice at the University of Waterloo.

Lauren Valley is a robotics artist and researcher based in Pittsburgh, PA. Through video and mechatronic installation, she attempts to explore stereotypes and gender barriers present in tech industries. Valley completed a residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 2016, and at ACRE, July 2017. She was recently granted a fellowship at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, 2018-2019. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Valley is also the director and editor of Electric Women, the online resource dedicated to featuring the work of women of color in new media art.