Back in 2016, then-Observer contributor Wayne Northcross (now co-curator of the 2026 Detroit Queer Biennium, among other names), gave a brief update to the “Fashion Arts Collective” that since 2010, “Fashion Arts Collective” (since 2010) “convened a variety of performances by choreographers, record artists, visual artists, composers, writers, writers and musicians and collaborated to provide multiple performances.” Nearly a decade later, the satellite collective is still developing strongly, continuing to promote interdisciplinary collaborative arts exchanges, mainly in New York and Michigan.
List of artists involved in collective initiatives – interdisciplinary film work, dialogue live performances, artist-led exhibitions and residences, and financial services and professional development programs led by the artist themselves – long, diverse, impressive, and impressive. It includes practitioners from painting, dance and design to music, installation art and even embroidery. Not surprisingly, most members of the collective core team wore multiple hats. Art Director Kevin Draper is an architect, sculptor and technician. Executive Director Lora Robertson is a master photographer of Leica and a filmmaker known for his large-scale works.
Recently, satellites collectively held the annual satellite Tribeca exhibition at the 5,000-square-foot Mriya Gallery on Read Street, New York, showing photos, photography and sculptures of Draper and Robertson. There is no literal dividing line in the gallery, but each artist's work is engraved with unique energy, forming intuitive boundaries – combination with abstraction, animalism and mechanization, hope has nothing to do with despair.
However, from May 18 to May 18, these works did not really object. To sum up, the show sees it as a kind of allegorical warning. Robertson shows us what must be done in “Americans are” and “Girls | Krons | Krons” – that is, actively calling and resisting oppression, whether ideology or politics. The clearest symbol of this resistance is the Molotov cocktail, which becomes large in her series of photo prints on aluminum, where precise composition and lighting transform violent objects into troubled beauty. Meanwhile, Draper shows us what would happen if he didn't do this in “About the Killer in My Heart” and “Bomb Site Scan”. His handmade, fully functional superbike Delta becomes a powerful metaphor: speed stands in dangerously seductive ways. He warned that our obsession with tools of violence may reverence violence itself if we do not remain vigilant.
After opening the satellite Tribeca on May 9 (a full disclosure here, I chaired the group “Violence, Beauty and Resistance and Social Decay”), I reconnected with the artists to talk more broadly about the program and find out what the collective is doing next.
Tribeca has more performances than at Mriya Gallery. What else does it include?
Lora Robertson: This year, we will celebrate the fifth birthday of our fellows program on May 16, and accomplices from New York and across the country will gather to celebrate the milestone. We also partnered with Artprize to host a tone night on May 15. The original songs by Stelth Ulvang and Trevor Menear are a direct response to the work in the gallery.
Kevin Draper: Satellite visual performances at Tribeca are part of a larger strategy to bring the dynamic intensity of performing arts into the visual arts and gallery spaces. In addition to visual art exhibitions and programming, we also use the gallery’s space and time to develop our own researcher participants. Our Fellows Program has over fifty artists working in all art verticals, and it is our annual gathering of researchers in the city, as well as the choices our film artists have to showcase new works.
This is the second edition of the satellite Tribeca. What's the difference this year compared to last year?
Draper: Last year, satellite’s visual performances at Tribeca focused on more personal, even biographical investigation directions. Since then, the planning vision for the show has expanded to many of us who have similar situations when we live.
Robertson: This is a completely different world. Last year, my self-portrait was very personalized, addressing a kind of interrupted Catholic upbringing. This year, my mind addresses the spirit of body autonomy, feminism, human rights and the 1960s activism. These global attentions are prioritized over my indoor life. Talk about these bigger ideas in art is a way to deal with horror and find a common basis for dialogue.
Draper: The structure of these programs is also completely different. In 2024, we held a massive event over three weeks in all the arts we touch: live music, movies, dance, ballet, visual arts, panels and performing arts events. We are actually testing our audience to understand what is strongest.
This year’s Tribeca show is a product of what we’ve learned and an increasing feeling about how visual art audiences differ from performing art audiences. It focuses more on the news and clarifies the information art gives to the audience.
Tell me more about pitch nights. What does this require and how can artists get involved? What is your role?
Draper: Pitch Night is the first collaboration between satellite and shared art programs. Artprize represents an opportunity for satellites to extend their professional development programs to regional arts organizations, a achievement of the long-term strategic goals of the satellite collective.
Robertson: Artprize started in 2009 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The city was activated by the arts program for two weeks in the fall, and they have generous rewards and grant programs. We have worked with them to create opportunities for our best and smartest collaborators. Five applicants will have five minutes to push their ideas to the arts professional group. The winner will be brought home $10,000 and passed the project in Grand Rapids this September.
Back to the show, how did you choose to complement each other at Mriya Gallery?
Robertson: My work complements Kevin in unexpected ways. Colors with American flag. Objects are elevated to symbols with layers of importance. We both talk about the themes of politics, religion and value systems in art. My work is disciplined, strict and precise, while Kevin works on a massive scale.
Draper: Our works also complement each other in a straightforward way, such as colors, textures and themes, as we work in adjacent studios, and there is a lot of careful planning for touch and other details. Our work quickly had a conversation with each other in which ambiguity and tensions in our own work worked together. We develop a common organizational theme and program as part of the exhibition development, which gives us the freedom to follow our direction while allowing the work to work together to influence the impact of the exhibition.
Do each of you have a favorite work on the show – an independent work or an element in a series?
Draper: deltasuperbike because it can easily attract attention. But, from a practice point of view, I am most satisfied with the “main scenery”, which was successfully hand-printed in accordance with high-tech, longevity materials. This freed me to start generating prints on a building scale, which is my long-term goal.
Robertson: I am very satisfied with Mrs. Moloto. Guided by Hunter S. I chose shutter speed to record the broken glass and burning flax burned in kerosene. I used very few corrections in post-production, but instead rely on the process and lighting design inside the camera. The result is a painting, historical feeling, which means we have been having problems with grass-root resistance for a long time.
You mentioned the original music, the work inspired by the View, and I noticed on the collective website that both “American Body” and “Girl| Crone| Crone” both have a soundtrack. How do those come together?
Robertson: My cousin Trevor Menear is a world-class musician who performs for a band called Dawes. I asked him to respond to Madame Moloto and the bronze statue. He wrote two killer songs, which are the soundtracks of visual works. The combination of these art forms itself becomes a powerful mashup and uses 1960s activism as a dialogue idea. You can hear songs on our website or on the Mriya gallery.
Draper: Lumineers’ Stelth Ulvang is the main attraction of the 2024 satellite Tribeca and scores every big guy on the show, a pair of Bonnie & Clyde’s songs. Stelth worked with Satellite Collective and even scored points for our Rogue Film Department more often with Lora Robertson. I asked Stelth to create a soundtrack to determine what these characters will soon sound like in the new political world.
In addition to “Satellite Tribeca”, what other satellite collective plans can people expect?
Robertson: I will be released on June 5 on June 7 on Arts On Inds. The train windows are dark behind the glass on this night It is a dance movie and a biography story about how women must steal time to create art. We also plan to bring together our best and smartest collaborators to compete for opportunities in Artprize, Michigan, where we will host our own venues in a specific location-specific historical boiler room, inviting collaborators to respond to the field.
Finally, are there any artists you are now particularly excited about their work? Whose profession do you think observers readers should focus on?
Robertson: Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Philip Stoddard, Trevor Menear, Nikhil Melnechuk, Katy Chevigny, Melissa Jackson, Stelth Ulvang and Nathan Langston.
