ForImmediate Release
Contact:
City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong(a)yahoo.com
City ArtPresents an Evening of Art and Words with Lance Olsen, Michael Mejia, withVideo by Andi Olsen and composer Karen Power
Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch
210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City UT 84111
Wednesday March 22nd, 7:00—8:00 P.M.
Joinus March 22nd at the Salt Lake City Public Library for an evening ofart and words, of artful words, featuring Michael Mejia reading from hisnovel-in-progress, TOKYO; and a special screening of a collaborative work bywriter Lance Olsen, video artist Andi Olsen, and Irish composer/sound artistKaren Power, which is based on Lance's forthcoming novel, DREAMLIVES OF DEBRIS(Dzanc Books, April 2017) as part of the City Art Reading Series.
MICHAEL MEJIA is theauthor of the novel Forgetfulness (FC2). His fiction and nonfiction haveappeared in many journals and anthologies, including Notre Dame Review, AGNI,DIAGRAM, Angels of the Americlypse, and My Mother She Killed Me, My Father HeAte Me. He has received a Literature Fellowship in Prose from the NEA and agrant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Editor-in-chief of WesternHumanities Review and co-founding editor of Ninebark Press, he teaches creativewriting at the University of Utah.
LANCE OLSEN is author of more than20 books of and about innovative writing, including the novel Dreamlives ofDebris, forthcoming from Dzanc this April. His short stories, essays, andreviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, such asConjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Fiction International, Village Voice, BOMB,McSweeney’s and Best American Non-Required Reading. A Guggenheim, Berlin Prize,D.A.A.D. Artist-in-Berlin Residency, N.E.A. Fellowship, and Pushcart Prize recipient,as well as a Fulbright Scholar, he teaches experimental narrative theory andpractice at the University of Utah and serves as chair of the Board ofDirectors at the independent press Fiction Collective Two, currently in its43rd year making fiction making trouble.
ANDI OLSEN’s most recent project isa collaboration with Lance Olsen: There’s No Place Like Time. A multimodalnovel you can walk through, it takes the form of a real retrospective of videosdedicated to the career of an artist who never existed. An interplay of videos,texts, objects, & interventions, the installation explores the relationshipbetween the visual & the verbal as it redefines the page, the novel, &gallery space, while thematically investigating the problematics of identity construction& historical knowledge. Her ongoing project, Hideous Beauty, is a Cabinetof Wonders composed of short videos, assemblages, & collage texts exploringthe idea of monstrosity & the generative possibilities inherent in theprocesses of decay. Olsen’s videos have been exhibited in such venues as theAmerican Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore) & Greenhouse Berlin (Germany),& have screened at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival,Mütter Museum (Philadelphia), Revolving Museum (Lowell), & at literary andartistic events in Banff, Cologne, Münich, Paris, Rouen, Szeged, Warsaw, &across the United States. Her art has been exhibited & published around thecountry & abroad.
KAREN POWER is an Irish composer,educator, improviser and academic who writes primarily for acoustic andelectroacoustic forces. In 2009 she completed a PhD in acoustic andelectroacoustic composition at SARC (Sonic Arts Research Centre), Belfast, withProf. Michael Alcorn. Throughout her PhD, Karen’s works focused on the commonalitiesand individualities of both acoustic and electroacoustic composition aiming todevelop a more integrated language, which acknowledges and utilizes suchstrengths. Recently Karen has spent time in residency at The Arctic Circle, TheBanff Centre, Canada, The Guesthouse, Ireland, UCDavis, California, USA and in2015/16 be artist in Berlin through a DAAD Award. She has been composer inResidence with Galway Music Residency Program and Music Generation. Karen haswritten pieces for Bozzini Quator, Alarm Will Sound, SCAW, Carin Levine,ConTempo, the Ulster Orchestra, RTE Symphony Orchestra, Kate Ellis, Mmm Trioand Quiet Music Ensemble. She has been awarded national and internationalawards and honorary mentions for her work and has represented Irelandinternationally on a number of occasions. Karen’s installation work and herrecent interest in field recordings has taken her music across many genres andart mediums including: video, dance, film, painting, sculpture and glass. Thiscross-arts approach has enabled some of her more open-time music to bepresented in spaces like galleries, parks, warehouses and houses, which offeraudiences choice in how and when we listen. Last year Karen developed her firstradio art work, which was premiered live to air on RTE Lyric fm. This piecehearspace has since travelled the world and has been heard on radio stationsfrom Australia to Germany.
Most featuredreadings are followed by an open reading.
The event is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah ArtsCouncil, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, X-mission, andaudience donations.
Joel Long
