Take a Number: Stephanie Mercedes and Pau S. Pescador

Join Take a Number artists Stephanie Mercedes and Pau S. Pescador for a discussion about their work and the ways bureaucracies and institutions shape individuals and their relationships to one another.

The talk takes place in conjunction with Take a Number: Artists in Bureaucracy, on view at AAC through December 18. It will take place online and is free but registration is required. Register here.

Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy, features seven artists who explore, co-opt, and challenge bureaucratic systems and structures. They highlight the human impact of bureaucratic institutions, from the professional relationships between artists and arts organizations, to the obscure workings of financial systems, to the violent and deadly consequences wrought by global empires. More about Take a Number.

Stephanie Mercedes, who goes by Mercedes, is a DC-based Argentinian/American artist who melts down confiscated weapons and turns them into musical instruments, installations, and public art. She has been funded by the Open Society Foundations and Light Work and has exhibited, performed, and lectured at the Bronx Museum, the Kennedy Center, the Queens Museum, and the Smithsonian. Mercedes regularly hosts public gun destruction and melting ceremonies throughout Washington, DC and is in the process of turning Bullets to Bells into a DC violence de-escalation program. She has been an artist in residence at: VisArts, Halcyon Art Labs, the Bronx Museum, Montgomery College, and Christopher Newport University.

Pau S. Pescador is a trans-nonbinary artist who works in film, photography, and performance and lives and works in Los Angeles, California. They graduated with an MFA from University of California, Irvine and a BA from University of Southern California. Select exhibitions, screenings, and performances include: UV Estudios (Buenos Aires, AR); Biquini Wax and LADRÓNgalería (Mexico City, MX); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Main Museum, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA at Angels Gate Cultural Center, Marathon Screenings, Machine Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Archives, Hammer Museum, with KCHUNG TV, and REDCAT (Los Angeles, CA); Performa 2015 and Colony (New York, NY); and 18th Street Art Center and 5 Car Garage (Santa Monica, CA). Their first collection of writing, CRUSHES: A NOVELLA, was published by Econo Textual Objects in Spring 2017.