Join us for a demon-trapping performance with guest artist Tamar Ettun, organized by curator-in-residence Meghana Karnik, participant in the Artis Curatorial Residency Program at ISCP. The performance is participatory and in communion with Lilit, the Empathic Demon. Tamar will conjure Lilit to help visitors identify, draw, and trap a demon in their lives. The performance will conclude with a collective ritual to release the demons. How to Trap a Demon is presented during ISCP Open Studios, and is open to all ages, regardless of experience or skill level.

Available for sale will be Ettun’s new artist book, Texts From Lilit: 31 Cards To Connect You To Your Demon, which Karnik collaborated on as an editor. 

About Texts From Lilit

Texts from Lilit conjures the demon Lilit (Lillith), whose story traces back to ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology. Reaching from the dark side of the moon via text messages, Lilit explores the insidious side of empathy, trauma-healing modalities, and astrology as storytelling. In a 31-card deck, Lilit’s texts become tools to facilitate connecting with your inner demons and support integrating shadow selves. Texts from Lilit was first printed in conjunction with the exhibition“Tamar Ettun: How To Trap A Demon” (October 6 - November 16, 2022), curated by Meghana Karnik at SUNY Purchase's Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery.

About Tamar Ettun

Tamar Ettun (she/they) uses textile, sculpture, and performance to examine somatic empathy, trauma-healing modalities, and ritual. Ettun has had exhibitions and performances at The Chinati Foundation, Pioneer Works, Pace University Gallery, The Watermill Center, Art Omi Sculpture Garden, PERFORMA, The Barrick Museum, Fridman Gallery, Uppsala Museum of Art, Bryant Park, Sculpture Center, Madison Square Park, e-flux, Socrates Sculpture Park, Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, among others. Ettun received awards and fellowships from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, Stoneleaf Retreat, BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange), The California Studio at UC Davis, Chinati Foundation, Moca Tucson, Marble House Project, Franklin Furnace, MacDowell Fellowship, Iaspis - Swedish Grant Council, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Abrons Art Center, Triangle Arts Association, Art Production Fund, and RECESS. Ettun founded The Moving Company, an artists collective creating performances in public spaces and a social engagement project with Brooklyn teens hosted by The Brooklyn Museum. Ettun received her MFA from Yale University in 2010 where she was awarded the Alice English Kimball Fellowship. She studied at Cooper Union in 2007, while earning her BFA from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. Ettun teaches at Columbia University School of Arts, and was the Spring 2022 Windgate Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Purchase. www.tamarettun.com

About Meghana Karnik

Meghana Karnik (she/her) works across modalities as a curator, arts administrator, writer, and artist exploring paradoxes between art and social change, spirituality and technology, lived experience and institutional process. Currently, she is The Luminary’s 2022 Curator-In-Residence for their pilot residency, Process-As-Practice, where she is researching the question: “How do we relate in a culture without fact, but only of wordplay?” She is a Co-Curator of The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2023 and Manager, Grants & Artist Initiatives with Art Matters Foundation in New York, NY. She has organized research, exhibitions, and programming as Associate Curator of FRONT International 2022: Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows (Cleveland, 2019-2020), Associate Director of EFA Project Space (New York, 2015-2019), and independently with The Cleveland Institute of Art’s Reinberger Gallery (Cleveland), Critical Practices, Inc. (New York), Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels, BE), Penthouse Art Residency (Brussels, BE), Foundation and Center for Contemporary Arts (Prague, CR), and Zygote Press (Cleveland). In 2020, she participated in FSAS International Curator Residency (Dublin, IE). Karnik has an M.A. in Arts Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University, a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from Case Western Reserve University, and completed a non-degree BFA Exhibition & Thesis in Drawing as a cross-registered student of The Cleveland Institute of Art. www.storefrontpsychic.com