Curated by
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September 12, 2025
Friday, September 12, 3:30–4:30 PM
NARS Main Gallery, 4th Floor
Some politicians are claiming woke is dead. But how do can artists close their eyes once they've been opened? How do they make artwork in a world that would rather remain asleep?
It’s Prudenter – to Dream – A Conversation on Sociopolitical Art in a Post-Woke Landscape explores how engaged artistic practices continue to resist, adapt, and thrive today. Featuring artists Doreen Chan, Elizabeth Chang, Gill Gatfield, and Maya Smira, and moderated by curator Daniela Mayer, this panel is presented in conjunction with the exhibition It would hurt us – were we awake – at NARS Foundation.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition It would hurt us – were we awake –
Learn more about the exhibition
About the artists:
Doreen Chan (b.1987, Hong Kong) is a mixed-media artist focusing on social practice. She was trained in visual communication and photography before receiving her MA in Art Education from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. In her work, Chan re-examines the tensions between interpersonal relationships and subject formation. Through collecting, selecting, and reorganizing fragments from everyday life, she explores how individuals interact with collective and personal memories. She works site-specifically on installations, public programs, virtual projects, and collaborates with a wide range of individuals using images, sculptures, objects, sounds, and performance. Chan has exhibited in institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival 2022 (Linz), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Art Omi (New York), and Para Site (Hong Kong). In 2023, her commissioned project, Sipping Dreams, inaugurated Tai Kwun Contemporary’s V Hall. In the same year, she was listed as ArtReview China’s Future Greats. In 2021, she was an Eyebeam fellow and the 4th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group finalist. She was also selected as Cultured Magazine’s Young Artists (2021). Chan currently lives in New York.
Elizabeth Chang (b. 1980, Oakland, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Alameda, CA. Her work explores presence, memory, and perception through drawing, sculpture, installation, and photo-based processes. Informed by a background in psychiatry, she brings a research-driven, psychogeographic approach to questions of place, language, and emotional experience. She has exhibited in Mexico City, New York, Houston, and Philadelphia and has participated in residencies at Vermont Studio Center, NYC Crit Club/Canopy Program, and radio28cs.
Gill Gatfield holds a Bachelor of Laws and MFA (Hons) from University of Auckland. She has undertaken residencies and research at Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art NYC, Foreign Objekt Intelligence Lab, Vermont Studio Center, Poison Creek NZ, and KØN Museum Denmark. She is the recipient of NSW Government Sculpture Commission (2024), Arts Council New Zealand Global Digital New Work Grant (2023), CODAworx Creative Revolutionary (2020), VSC Sculpture Fellowship (2019), and NZ Women of Influence Awards (2019). Gatfield’s work has been exhibited in biennales, museums, and public space in Oceania, Europe and North America. Major projects have been presented at Museum of New Zealand / Wellington Sculpture Trust (2023–24), Venice Art Biennale (2022), Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin (2021–22), Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), and KØN Museum (2015), among others.
Maya Smira is a multidisciplinary artist born in Israel in 1983. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (2014), a BFA in Photography from Minshar School of Art (2012), and a BA in Arts and Humanities from the Open University of Israel (2012). She also holds a teaching certificate from Kibbutzim College of Education and is a certified yoga and dance instructor. Maya has received several awards, including the LG Art of the Pixel Award and the Outset Prize for best video artist at Fresh Paint Art Fair. She has presented solo exhibitions in Israel and Shanghai, following a residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and has exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and festivals.
About the Curatorial Fellow:
Daniela Mayer is an independent researcher, curator, and educator specializing in modern and contemporary art across the Americas, with a focus on transnational networks and the intersections of identity, race, and socio-political histories. Their curatorial practice emphasizes accessibility and social responsibility, highlighting artists who critically engage with power structures andunder represented histories.
Mayer curated and organized Cosmic Shelter: Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida’s Private Cosmococas at the Hunter College Art Galleries (October 2023–March 2024), which featured the U.S. premiere of two unique installations by the namesake Brazilian artists. In July 2024, Mayer curated Para Todos Todo, Free in the Open Air at MAMA Projects, the first solo New York exhibition of Colombian-American artistChristina Barrera. They also organized A Sense of Place, a 2021 symposium in collaboration with The Artist’s Institute and Dakar’s Raw Material Company, focusing on intersections of art, activism, and marginalized histories. Mayer also contributed to the curatorial team and exhibition catalogue for Robert Rauschenberg: Night Shades and Phantoms (2019) at the Robert RauschenbergFoundation.
Their research has appeared in Art Style: Art & Culture International Magazine, and they are a contributing writer at Hyperallergic. Mayer was a lecturer at Hunter College and guest lectures at the School of Visual Arts. They were a fellow at the Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust and held various research and administrative roles at Hunter College, Sotheby’s, and Art21. Mayer holds an M.A. and Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies from Hunter College, and a B.A. from New York University.
