Bergsonist

Thursday, February 6th at 8pm, ISSUE invites audiences to the 22 Boerum Pl. theater to experience new projects by multidisciplinary artists Leila Hassan and Selwa Abd (Bergsonist).

Abd’s Bergsonist project adopts an intuitive and fragment-based creative approach, drawing inspiration from the works of postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze and cognitive scientist David Chalmers. She is interested in building worlds (sonic and visual) as simulations set up for extending creative research and speculations on the future that awaits us. Bergsonist returns to ISSUE this February with a new iteration of As If Reality?, a multimodal work-in-progress series first presented during her 2022 residency in collaboration with Harvestworks (and more recently recontextualized in Norway, last October). Earlier presentations with ISSUE included shattering soundscapes with 360° projections captured in Morocco, and an outdoor performance on Governor’s Island. Her latest work will continue to explore the mind-bending journey between nonvirtual and virtual worlds. 

Selwa Abd is a Moroccan-born artist and composer based in New York City. Her prolific and thought-provoking output challenges critical questions surrounding the future of technology, her own fragmented personal identity shaped by the complexities of post-colonial urban environments, and the influence of virtual realities on contemporary society. She is a recipient of the NYFA x Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment Women’s Fund Grant (2024), the Jerome Hill Artist Alternate Award (2023), an ISSUE Project Room Artist-In-Residence (2022), and the Harvestworks’ Technology Immersion Program Fellowship (2022). She is also the founder of the community resource Pick Up The Flow and has been an NTS Radio resident since 2018. Her latest album “Maghreb” was featured on NPR's list of the best albums of 2024.