J Simmz on "Art and Death"

Sending out our second episode in the “Art and Death” segment to you all on Halloween (as is only fitting). This conversation with J Simmz delves into our personal and larger societal relationships with death, Simmz work as an intuitive and conceptual curator, how she has found ways to move naturally with cycles of life and death in work and beyond, and how we might apply that philosophy to our current state—the possible deaths of our own harmful institutions—and what our might our roles at this moment in time be.

“J. Simmz is an independent curator, writer, and researcher based in Ridgewood, Queens. She is director and curator of Doppelgänger Projects, an independent curatorial venture promoting distinctly alternative perspectives while focusing on practices of aesthetics, feminism, technology, and the esoteric within the emerging contemporary art landscape. Previously, she was Assistant Curator for g a macura inc., during which she managed GE's corporate collection. Jennifer holds her M.S. in Arts Administration from Boston University and obtained her B.A. from New York University in Art History.”

All the Updates

It has been a busy past month, with moving, settling in, and recording.

During the past few weeks we have been fortunate to speak with several illuminating guests: Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman spoke with us about his upcoming feature film Early Stage, “…an anthology film, speculating about the inner life of artificially intelligent networks.”

For our segment on Art and Death, we conversed with Bethany Tabor, a cultural arts programmer whose work focuses on death and end of life practices, J Simmz, a curator, writer, and co-founder of Doppelgänger Projects in New York, who works closely with the Death Positive Movement. Simmz conceptualizes exhibitions with heavy focus on the cycles of life and death, mysticism, and transcendence. This segment also included poet, mixed media artist, founder of Thedna Arts, and death doula Carrie Redway. Redway’s work with death is closely related to cycles of nature, folklore, mythology, and ritual.

We also delved more deeply into our Art and Health segment, speaking with artist and physician Dr. Eric Avery. Avery’s work has spanned several decades, and includes work exploring the social side of the AIDS/HIV crisis, as well as emerging infectious diseases, human rights abuses, death, and sexuality. We were also excited to speak with Dr. Bettina Judd, a writer, artist, performer, current Assistant Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, and author of Patient, a book of poems that explores the historical utilization of, and standardization of the dehumanization of Black, non-cisgender male bodies in the field of Eurocentric healthcare that continues today.

Our new intern, Tori Currier.

We would also like to take this time to welcome our summer intern Tori Currier! Tori is originally from East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She currently resides in Northampton, Massachusetts where she attends Smith College. Tori is a junior (2022J) majoring in Art History. Focused on LGBTQ+ art, she is passionate about the role of art in social movements. Presently, she is conducting research for an honors thesis about AIDS crisis art and its continued censorship in the art world today. 

Tori intends to pursue a career in higher education. Her ambitions include changing how art history is traditionally taught by giving more attention to artists who have long been excluded or underappreciated. Interested in how history can be conveyed through creative fiction, Tori is developing a television screenplay about LGBTQ+ artists from the 60’s - 80’s, hoping to educate younger generations about the community’s history and the significant social roles that art has played throughout these decades. 

As an intern for Critical Bounds, she will strive to facilitate conversations about the importance of art in critical global issues. She is enthusiastic about how programs and websites in the social media age can become spaces for marginalized voices as well as tools to make education more accessible.

Tori will be doing research, handling a lot of our social media, and taking over the blog for the next few weeks, as well as making an episode of her own in August, and we are so happy to have her.