Explore our Conferences
Explore our Conferences
Amy Andrieux and L’Rain in conversation with Claude Grunitzky (Tuesday, May 13, 2025).
@Argenis Apolinario
Amy Andrieux is a multifaceted curator and educator known for her work at the intersection of arts, media, and social justice. A first-generation Haitian American based in Brooklyn, she currently serves as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of MoCADA. Andrieux’s work centers on uplifting Black artists and fostering cultural equity within the arts community. She is a Mellon Fellow for Faculty Excellence at The New School, where she contributes to initiatives focused on inclusive faculty development. Additionally, she is a professor at Parsons School of Design. She is also the founder of the Arts Alliance of Africa + Diaspora..
Taja Cheek, known professionally as L’Rain, is an American experimentalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and curator, primarily recognized as the lead vocalist and songwriter of her eponymous band. Born and raised in Brooklyn, L’Rain is celebrated for her experimental music, which draws on a vast array of traditions and genres—a practice and aesthetic Cheek describes as “approaching songness.” Beyond her music career, Cheek serves as the Artistic Director of Performance Space New York and has held curatorial positions at prestigious institutions such as MoMA PS1.
Ekow Eshun, Enuma Okoro and Tschabalala Self in conversation with Claude Grunitzky (Tuesday, May 13, 2025).
Ekow Eshun is a writer and curator. He is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth, overseeing Britain’s foremost public art programme, and the former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Described by Vogue as “the most inspired - and inspiring - curator in Britain”, he has staged acclaimed exhibitions internationally and is a contributor to publications including Vogue, the New York Times, Financial Times and the Guardian. He is the author of books including, most recently, The Strangers, longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Jhalak Prize. He was a judge for the Turner Prize 2024 and a member of the jury for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024.
Enuma Okoro, is a Nigerian-American author, essayist, curator, lecturer and podcast host. She is a columnist forThe Financial Times where she writes the op-ed weekend column, “The Art of Life,” about art, culture and how we live. She is also the curator of the 2024 exhibition, “The Flesh of the Earth,” at Hauser & Wirth gallery in Chelsea, New York. And the art curator for the fall/winter 2024 journal, The Erotic Review. Her broader research and writing interests reflect how the intersection of the arts and critical theory, women's studies, philosophy and contemplative spirituality, and ecology can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live. Underlying this interrogation is a deeper interest in knowledge systems, and the power of narrative and story. Okoro has published nonfiction books. Her fiction and poetry are published in anthologies, and her nonfiction essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Aeon, Vogue, The Erotic Review, The Cut, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, NYU Washington Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and more. She is a host for Gallery Weekend Berlin:The Art Podcast, 2025.
Tschabalala Self (b.1990 Harlem, New York) lives and works in the Hudson Valley, New York. Self is an artist who builds a singular style from the syncretic use of painting, printmaking and sculpture to explore ideas surrounding the black body. She constructs depictions of predominantly women using a combination of sewn, printed, and painted materials, traversing different artistic and craft traditions. The formal and conceptual aspects of Self’s work seek to expand her critical inquiry into selfhood and human flourishing. Recent solo exhibitions and performances include Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (2025); Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2024); Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen (2023); Le Consortium, Dijon (2022); Performa 2021 Biennial, New York City (2021); Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2021); ICA, Boston (2020); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Art Omi, Ghent (2019); Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2019) and Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2018).
Zolaykha Sherzad
Zolaykha Sherzad was born in Kabul and raised in exile in Switzerland where she studied architecture. Eventually settling in New York, she co-founded an award-winning architecture firm, ARX. From 1998 to 2003, she taught architecture at the Pratt Institute of Architecture while simultaneously training as a fashion designer. In 2005, Zolaykha founded Zarif Design, a fashion and fine crafts company based in Kabul. Zarif, which means “delicate,” “fine,” “precious”, reflects the rich Afghan cultural heritage of traditional silk weaving, chapan-striped cotton and embroidery. Zolaykha was the designer in residence at Atelier Jolie in March and April 2025.
Haleh Liza Gafori is a NY-born poet, translator, and performance artist of Iranian descent. Her acclaimed books of translations of Rumi’s poetry, Gold (2022) and the soon-to-be-released 2nd volume, Water (2025), have been published by New York Review Books/ NYRB Classics. A 2024 MacDowell fellow, her work has been published by Paris Review, Harvard Review, Columbia University Press, Lit Hub, the Brooklyn Rail, and others. Weaving poems, commentary, and song, she has presented her work at Stanford University, Lincoln Center, the Academy of American Poets, Le Poisson Rouge, and elsewhere.
Shirin Neshat in conversation with Angelina Jolie, moderated by Claude Grunitzky (Saturday, March 8th, 2025).
The Catharsis Conference on March 8th, International Women’s Day, was presented as part of Strand For Women, in partnership with the Invisible Dog Art Center and Eat OffBeat at Atelier Jolie.
The show was about nurturing solidarity with and between women, and being in sisterhood with women from Afghanistan and Iran. The day of March 8th included an open community day, the catharsis conference and a private opening catered by Eat Offbeat.
Jasmine Edwards in conversation with Claude Grunitzky (Wednesday, February 26th, 2025).
Jasmine Edwards, MA, LCAT, MT-BC (she/her) is a doctoral candidate and fellow within Steinhardt Music Education with a focus on music therapy at New York University. Jasmine holds a BM and MA in music therapy from Florida State University and NYU, respectively. Her clinical experiences include private practice, outpatient, school-based, community, and medical pediatric settings, and she is trained in NICU-MT, First Sounds: RBL, and Austin Vocal Psychotherapy. Jasmine has a vested interest in elevating dialogues about cultural humility within music therapy education and clinical practice within both her teaching and academic writing. She has served as an adjunct faculty member in the music therapy departments at Howard University, New York University, Montclair State University, Nazareth College, Duquesne University, and Molly University.
@Qori Camargo
@Qori Camargo
Samora Pinderhughes in conversation with Claude Grunitzky (Tuesday, January 21rst, 2025).
Samora Pinderhughes is a composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist known for striking intimacy and carefully crafted, radically honest lyrics alongside high-level musicianship. He is also known for using his music to examine sociopolitical issues and fight for change and works in the tradition of the black surrealists, those who bend word, sound, and image towards the causes of revolution. Pinderhughes is a recipient of the Kennedy Center Social Practice Residency and Founder of the non-profit the Healing Project.
Inaugural Catharsis Conference at Atelier Jolie:
Dr. Rita Charon and Artist Prune Nourry on Healing through art, moderated by Claude Grunitzky (Saturday, December 14th, 2024).
Dr. Rita Charon is a general internist and literary scholar who originated the field of narrative medicine. She is Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. She completed the MD at Harvard in 1978 and the PhD in English at Columbia in 1999, concentrating on narratology and the works of Henry James. Her research focuses on the consequences of narrative medicine practice, narrative medicine pedagogy, and health care team effectiveness.
Sculptor Prune Nourry has consistently expanded the boundaries of art through collaboration—fostering conversations at the forefront of artistic discourse and social engagement. Believing in the transformative power of sculpture, and the idea that artworks nurture collective emotions with the capacity to trigger change in a ripple-like effect, she created the Catharsis Arts Foundation with Claude Grunitzky.
Claude Grunitzky is the CEO and Managing Partner of the Equity Alliance, a fund dedicated to providing capital to emerging, underrepresented venture capitalists and early stage founders. Claude is also the founder of two media companies focused on Black culture, TRACE) and TRUE Africa. Claude is a Visiting Social Innovator at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Social Innovation and Change Initiative, an accelerator of positive social change that supports visionary social innovators and strengthens the ecosystems they need to thrive. A graduate of London University and MIT, where he earned an MBA as a Sloan Fellow, Claude is a trustee at MoMA PS1 and at MASS MoCA, two of America’s leading contemporary art museums, and the Chairman of Catharsis Arts Foundation.