Artist Q&A with Lauren Baccus & Ibtisam Zaman

Listen to artists and current residents Lauren Baccus and Ibtisam Zaman discuss their work and experiences at the Peter Bullough Foundation artist residency. Hear briefly from the PBF's executive director, Katie Mooney Buzby, and archive manager and photographer, Jeffrey Albright. Questions are encouraged; if you'd like to send any in ahead of the event, please reach out to info@peterbulloughfoundation.org. 

To find out more about our artists... 

Lauren Baccus is a textile artist and researcher whose work centers around the construction of Caribbean identity and womanhood through textile and costume. She is strongly influenced by masquerade and the region’s legacy of resistance and storytelling through cloth and clothing. Her most recent project, Salt and Aloes, is an archive of Caribbean material culture over the past century. She is currently completing a Masters in Textiles and Material Culture from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

www.laurenbaccus.com

https://saltandaloes.substack.com

Ibtisam Zaman is a young multidisciplinary artist who focuses on painting traditional and narrative portraiture, still life subjects, and abstract expressions. Her work is inspired by Persian Islamic geometric art, Indian classical art, surrealism, modern realism, and abstract expressionism. At age six, she moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma to England, followed by the UAE. Her mother made the decision shortly after 9/11 to escape the violence that Muslims and BIPOC are still facing today. By thirteen, she had lived in both the UAE and India for nine years, where she became a multilingual outsider. Says Zaman, "my skin tone and fluency gave me access to communities willing to accept me for my external features, but not the hidden identities I carry." She creates to clarify the ambiguity of far and near places; to humanise identities of people regardless of ethnicity, education, sexuality, or gender. In her paintings, lie the struggle against injustice and the prayer for a brighter tomorrow.  She holds and heals communities through her painting expression and process. This work is her determination for truth, empowerment, and liberation. As a Black, lesbian, multilingual, and intersectional feminist in an art world designed by and for white, heteronormative-masculinity, she owns the tools to create this political work. This is her purpose as an artist.

https://blackwomanartist.org/