Artists from across the globe come to Stanford to perform, create and engage.

The 80-plus guest artists visiting campus this fall are hosted by over 20 Stanford departments, centers and programs. Some of the artists will be at Stanford for a single public event and others will stay for an extended visit for deep engagement with students and faculty.

New in 2018-19 is the Stanford Presidential Residencies on the Future of the Arts. This year, the program brings four world-renowned artists to campus for a residency where they will experience the multidisciplinary strength of the university. The goal of the residencies is to offer artists an opportunity to engage with the distinctive intellectual resources of a university campus and to stimulate the creative process.

Each artist is hosted by one or more of the organizations under the Office of the Vice President for the Arts: Anderson Collection, Cantor Arts Center, Institute for  Diversity in the Arts, Stanford Arts Institute and Stanford Live.

The Presidential Artists will interact with Stanford faculty and students in multiple disciplines as they work on an artistic project with international resonance. These initial visits are expected to be only the beginning of a long, sustained and vital series that brings new artists regularly to the campus to engage with the campus community around issues of significant import.

The four artists in this program are described below.

Kahlil Joseph is a visual artist and filmmaker, co-founder of the Underground Museum in Los Angeles and creator of BLKNWS, a hybrid work that is part art, part news broadcast, part video and part collage. His work has been exhibited at LA MOCA, Tate Modern, ICA Philadelphia and the New Museum in New York. His yearlong residency in 2018-19 is hosted by the Cantor in collaboration with the Institute for Diversity in the Arts .

Joseph is on campus this fall installing BLKNWS, a two-channel video projection that is scheduled to be displayed this month at the Cantor, the dining hall in Lagunita and Harmony House. Roundtable discussions with faculty, students and experts across disciplines will examine issues related to BLKNWS , such as the definitions of art, news and business in a digital era that is disrupting traditional media platforms.

“Presenting BLKNWS at the Cantor and other sites on campus provides us with the chance to experiment with 21st-century notions of art and its presentation,” said Susan Dackerman, John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor. “ BLKNWS is a new and innovative form of artistic production that we’ll incubate in preparation for its presentation at the Venice Biennale in May 2019.”

Kerry Tribe is a visual artist working primarily in film, video and installation, whose work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, MoMA, Tate Modern and SFMoMA. During her yearlong residency, hosted by Stanford Arts Institute , Tribe will give a public lecture about her work in the fall; teach “Art in the Age of Neuroscience” winter quarter; and teach “Practice and Critique” spring quarter.

Inua Ellams is an internationally touring poet, playwright and performer who has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre and the BBC, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His fall 2018 residency is hosted by Stanford Live, which is presenting Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles in the Roble Studio Theater Nov. 8-10.

Ellams’ play traverses African barbershops in Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra and London, where besides haircuts, customers and barbers take in and share confessions, advice and stories. Told by Ellams, who emigrated from Nigeria to London as a teenager, the work captures the way community and culture come to life in everyday gathering spaces.

Nitin Sawhney is an award-winning musician, producer, composer, conductor and DJ who has scored for and performed with Paul McCartney, Sting, the London Symphony Orchestra, Anoushka Shankar and Nelson Mandela, among others, and is a recent recipient of Ivor Novello’s Lifetime Achievement Award. His extended campus visit, hosted by Stanford Live , kicked off this fall with a music performance featuring Aref Durvesh on tabla and vocalist Eva Stone at Bing Concert Hall; the U.S. premiere of Dystopian Dream , a theatrical realization of a concept originated by Sawhney in collaboration with international hip-hop duo Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez at Memorial Auditorium; and a DJ set for this year’s student-only Party on the Edge at the Cantor. Sawhney will return in the spring for more activities as part of his yearlong residency.

“We are really excited to kick off this new initiative with Inua and Nitin, two important artists at the top of their game,” said Chris Lorway, executive director at Stanford Live. “Both have an innate curiosity and openness to discovery, making Stanford an ideal partner in their evolving artistic practice.”