Torch ’72/2020 | University at Albany

Torch ’72/2020, a commissioned project by artist Shane Aslan Selzer, explores the trajectory and lineage of intersectional justice efforts on the UAlbany campus, and reactivates UAlbany’s 1972 Torch yearbook, edited by then student and renowned AIDS activist, Ron Simmons.

We Demand Power Over Our Bodies, 2021, printed silk, printed chiffon, 78 x 58 inches, courtesy of the artist
Shane Aslan Selzer with Social Action Archive Committee, TORCH ’72/2020 *feat. Fanta Ballo, 2021, 2 channel video projection, courtesy of the artist
Together Our Resistance Channels Hope (TORCH) (installation view), 2021, printed nylon, 3 x 5 feet each, courtesy of the artist
Social Action Archive: University Libraries, University at Albany, SUNY, still, 2015, digital video projection, 11:19; black and white; sound, courtesy of the artist
Left: Torch ’72 Yearbook, published April 1972, courtesy of the Yearbook Collection, 1900-2014 Right: Albany Student Press, April 28, 1972, page 12, facsimile reproduction,courtesy of Student Newspaper Collection, 1916-2019. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany, SUNY
Together Our Resistance Channels Hope (TORCH) (installation view),2021, printed nylon, 3 x 5 feet each, courtesy of the artist

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Educational Resources: Torch ’72/2020 PowerPoint

Torch’72/2020 *feat. Pain by Fanta Ballo

Shane Aslan Selzer is a practicing artist and founding editor of Social Action Archive Committee (SAAC). The Social Action Archive Committee is a networked collective of individual researchers coming together as a collegiate structure for research and production into the Torch’72 archive. Selzer founded SAAC in 2014 and has been engaged in a long term research project with Visual AIDS artist archives. Selzer has exhibited at Tabakalera in San Sebastian, Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, and Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf and Berlin. Selzer Co-Edited, What We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art (SUNY Press, 2014) and was a contributing editor to Asiko: On the Future of Artistic and Curatorial Pedagogies in Africa, (CCA Lagos, 2017). Selzer teaches at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Support for the University Art Museum exhibitions and programs is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and The University at Albany Foundation

Press:

ASP "University Art Museum Reopens Doors, New Exhibits Address Racial Justice"

Albany Proper "Museum Exhibit Looks Back On A Progressive Yearbook That Shocked Albany"

Additional Resources:

Torch ’72 Yearbook

Ron Simmons Reader