Curator Maymanah Farhat will be in SFCB’s gallery to discuss the exhibition A Radical Alteration, discuss some of her favorite pieces on display, and answer questions about her research at the Women’s Studio Workshop archive. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear about Maymanah’s process and how collaboration with a storied arts organization informed certain curatorial choices.

PRESENTER BIO:
Maymanah Farhat is an arts writer, an award-winning curator, and a university lecturer. Her writing and scholarship focus on overlooked artists and forgotten art scenes. She frequently contributes to the Brooklyn Rail's Art Book section and teaches at Fresno State University. Farhat is the curator of multiple exhibitions related to artists books, including Poetry is Not a Luxury (2019), Positively Charged: Copier Art in the Bay Area Since the 1960s (2023), and A Radical Alteration: Women's Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making (2024).

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making looks at the organization’s rich history as a proponent of book arts for marginalized communities in the U.S. Through artists’ books, printed materials, ephemera, and archival materials, the exhibition looks at how the organization’s policies, programming, and operations have evolved over the last fifty years, creating a space where the conditions of art making and institutional support are in service to a sustainable and more equitable art ecosystem.