Welcome to the fourth edition of the Fisher Center LAB Biennial — a thematic festival that invites and commissions artists to create new works that grapple with some of the most pressing questions of our time.

For the 2022-23 edition we are partnering with the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts (CHRA) to create Common Ground, a year-long international program focusing on the politics of land and food and taking place on four continents. We have commissioned new works from artists whose practices engage with food sovereignty, climate change, and land rights. Together they invite us to imagine a more equitable, sustainable, and healthful future.

Common Ground includes two four-day festivals at and around the Fisher Center – one at harvest time (October 13-16, 2022), one in the growing season (May 4-7, 2023). The harvest festival includes the US premiere of When [Salmon Salmon [Salmon]], a trilogy of performance installations by the Turner Prize-nominated Cooking Sections, and the world premiere of The Belly is a Garden, a performance and walk through the cultivated Bard Farm and the wild spaces that surround it with seed keeper and artist Vivien Sansour. The growing-season festival will include world premieres of performances and installations by Kenyon Adams and Chef Omar Tate, Tara Rodriguez Besosa, Tania El Khoury, Suzanne Kite, and Jordan Weber.

The subject matter of Common Ground is both vast and timely, encompassing ethics, politics, history, science, and aesthetics. We’ve commissioned some of the world’s most innovative artists, whose practices invite us to learn from them and join them in conversation. Taken together, the wide-ranging works they’re creating will provide audiences with a complex, multi-dimensional opportunity to explore foodways, land politics, and their central importance in sustainability, social justice, and climate action. The festival has evolved from Bard’s commitment to sustainability, advocacy, and support for marginalized communities in the region, and to the study and implementation of new directions in regenerative farming practices and food science.

Since the subjects of land and food are interconnected, Common Ground is a truly global program. In addition to the Hudson Valley festival, it includes artistic programs in Colombia (curated by Juliana Steiner), Palestine (curated by Emily Jacir), and South Africa (curated by Boyzie Cekwana), in collaboration with partner schools in the Open Society University Network. Ideas will flow between the four sites through a series of talks, classes, and sharing of knowledge. In addition to these artistic programs, CHRA and the Bard Farm have programmed a series of digital and in-person talks by artists and activists on the politics of food, farming, seed preservation, and land rights.

—Tania El Khoury and Gideon Lester

Vivien Sansour is an artist, researcher, and writer. She uses installations, images, sketches, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and to advocate for seed conservation and the protection of agrobiodiversity as a cultural/political act. Vivien founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library as part of this work with local farmers and has been showcased internationally, including at the Chicago Architecture Biennale, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Berlinale, Istanbul Biennale, Fotoindustria, and the Venice Art Biennale. An enthusiastic cook, Vivien works to bring threatened varieties “back to the dinner table to become part of our living culture rather than a relic of the past.” This work has led her to collaborate with award-winning chefs, including Anthony Bourdain and Sammi Tamimi. A former Harvard University Fellow, Vivien is currently teaching at Bard College where she is developing a course on human and nature design in the Hudson Valley.

ABOUT FISHER CENTER

The Fisher Center develops, produces, and presents performing arts across disciplines through new productions and context-rich programs that challenge and inspire. As a premier professional performing arts center and a hub for research and education, the Fisher Center supports artists, students, and audiences in the development and examination of artistic ideas, offering perspectives from the past and present, as well as visions of the future. The Fisher Center demonstrates Bard’s commitment to the performing arts as a cultural and educational necessity. Home is the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and located on the campus of Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. The Fisher Center offers outstanding programs to many communities, including the students and faculty of Bard College, and audiences in the Hudson Valley, New York City, across the country, and around the world. Building on a 162-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders.

The Center presents more than 200 world-class events and welcomes 50,000 visitors each year. The Fisher Center supports artists at all stages of their careers and employs more than 300 professional artists annually. The Fisher Center is a powerful catalyst of art-making regionally, nationally, and worldwide. Every year it produces 8 to 10 major new works in various disciplines. Over the past five years, its commissioned productions have been seen in more than 100 communities around the world. During the 2018-19 season, six Fisher Center productions toured nationally and internationally. In 2019, the Fisher Center won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for Daniel Fish’s production of Oklahoma! which began life in 2007 as an undergraduate production at Bard and was produced professionally in the Fisher Center’s SummerScape Festival in 2015 before transferring to New York City.

ABOUT FISHER CENTER LAB

​​Fisher Center LAB is the Fisher Center’s artist residency and commissioning program, providing custom-made and meaningful support for innovative artists across disciplines. Since its launch in 2012, Fisher Center LAB has supported residencies, workshops, and performances for hundreds of artists, incubating new projects and engaging audiences, students, faculty and staff in the process of creating contemporary performance.

ABOUT BARD COLLEGE

Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the adjoining Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; nine early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 162-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal education. The undergraduate program at the main campus in the Hudson Valley has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

SPECIAL THANKS
Bard College’s Experimental Humanities Department, The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College, Hudson Valley Farm Hub, the Hudson Valley Seed Company, and Rebecca Yoshino/Bard Farm.

COMMISSIONING CREDITS

The Belly is a Garden was commissioned by Fisher Center LAB, and the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts for the Fisher Center LAB Biennial

The Fisher Center is generously supported by Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center at Bard and Bard Music Festival, and Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival members, as well as by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Additional support for this season has been received funding from members of the Live Arts Bard Creative Council, The Educational Foundation of America, the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, The Lucille Lortel Foundation, and the Fisher Center's Artistic Innovation Fund, with lead support from Rebecca Gold and S. Asher Gelman '06 through the March Forth Foundation.

In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.

This land acknowledgment, adopted in 2020, required establishing and maintaining long-term, and evolving, relationships with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. The Mellon Foundation's 2022 Humanities for All Times grant for “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard.

Support for the Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival is provided by the following individuals, corporations, and foundations, among many others. We thank you for joining the late Richard B. Fisher with your generosity and partnership.

Special thanks to those who are supporting our programs with their commitments to the Bard College Endowment Challenge. Thank you for ensuring Bard’s continuity as a beacon for higher education, bolstering the development of innovative programs that offer access to rigorous, high-quality education for new populations around the world.

If you wish to become a member or make a contribution in support of vital arts experiences, please call 845-758-7987 or visit fishercenter.bard.edu/support.

Donors to the Bard College Endowment Challenge for the Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival

Jamie Albright and Stephen Hart

Anonymous

Bettina Baruch Foundation

Michelle R. Clayman

Robert C. Edmonds ’68

Jeanne Donovan Fisher

Neil Gaiman

Helena and Christopher Gibbs

Susan and Roger Kennedy

Dr. Barbara Kenner

Edna and Gary Lachmund

Alfred and Glenda Law

Gideon Lester

Anthony Napoli

David and Susan Rockefeller

Denise S. Simon and Paulo Vieiradacunha

Martin and Toni Sosnoff

Felicitas S. Thorne

Irene Zedlacher

Donors to the Fisher Center

Leadership Support

Anonymous

Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation

Brooklyn Community Foundation

Carolyn Marks Blackwood and Gregory H. Quinn

Jeanne Donovan Fisher

Alan H. and Judith Fishman

S. Asher Gelman ’06 and Mati Bardosh Gelman

March Forth Foundation

The Milikowsky Family Foundation

Millbrook Tribute Garden

Nancy and Edwin Marks Family Foundation

Anthony Napoli

National Endowment for the Arts

O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Denise S. Simon and Paulo Vieiradacunha

Martin and Toni Sosnoff

Felicitas S. Thorne

Andrew E. Zobler

Golden Circle

The Educational Foundation of America

Amy and Ronald Guttman

Barbara and Sven Huseby

Mary Byrne and Glenn Mai

Shao Mai

Daniel and Bonnie Shapiro

Director

Jamie Albright and Stephen Hart

Annie and Jim Bodnar

Gary DiMauro, Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty

Catherine C. Fisher

Jana Foundation

Donald and Gay Kimelman

Lizbeth and George Krupp

Marika Lindholm and Ray Nimrod

Lucille Lortel Foundation

Virginia and Timothy Millhiser

Martha Patricof

Alan Seget

Producer

Anonymous

John Geller and Alan Skog

Thomas and Bryanne Hamill

Paul and Lynn Knight

Ruth E. Migliorelli

Thendara Foundation

Patron

Mark Epstein and Arlene Shechet

James Gillson

Eileen Guilfoyle and David Moody

Frederic Harwood and Nedda Dimontezemolo

Arnold Iovinella Jr. and William Bozzetto

Beth Jones and Susan Simon

Raymond Learsy

Prof. Nancy S. Leonard and Dr. Lawrence Kramer

Gideon Lester and Tom Sellar

Liza Parker and Frank Migliorelli

Alex Payne and Nicole Brodeur

Ted Ruthizer and Jane Denkensohn

Myrna B. Sameth

David Schulz

Gail Shneyer and Abraham Nussbaum, MD

Elizabeth Weatherford

Donors to the Bard Music Festival

Leadership Support

Bettina Baruch Foundation

Robert C. Edmonds ’68

Jane W. Nuhn Charitable Trust

Dr. Barbara Kenner

Felicitas S. Thorne

Millie and Robert Wise

Golden Circle

Helen and Roger Alcaly

Jeanne Donovan Fisher

Director

Kathleen Vuillet Augustine

Michelle R. Clayman

Dr. Sanford Friedman and Virginia Howsam

Rachel and Dr. Shalom Kalnicki

Susan and Roger Kennedy

Edna and Gary Lachmund

Amy and Thomas O. Maggs

New York State Council on the Arts

Drs. M. Susan and Irwin Richman

Denise S. Simon and Paulo Vieiradacunha

Anthony and Margo Viscusi

Richard and Dee Wilson

Producer

Anonymous

Amy K. and David Dubin

John Geller and Alan Skog

Lazard Asset Management

Sarah Solomon

Thendara Foundation

Patron

Lydia Chapin and David Soeiro

Curtis DeVito and Dennis Wedlick

Estate of Clyde Talmadge Gatlin

Helena and Christopher Gibbs

Carlos Gonzalez and Katherine Stewart

Elena and Fred Howard

George and Barbara Kafka

Alison L. Lankenau

Evelyn and Don McLean

Martin L. and Lucy Miller Murray

Karl Moschner and Hannelore Wilfert

Samuel and Ellen Phelan

Jacqueline Royce

Janet and Michael Sirotta

Thomas and Diane Stanley

Edwin Steinberg and Judy Halpern

Olivia van Melle Kamp

Irene Zedlacher

William C. Zifchak, Esq.

List current as of September 29, 2022