THE MATAKYEV
RESEARCH RESIDENCY
The Matakyev Research Residency is a collective inquiry which takes place over the course of several days, and even months and years, through intensive and intentional conversation, exchange, and connection to the land. The conversations and interactions which happen in the matakyevs will be considered in media res—we are building on and broadening the experiences and knowledges of our own ancestors as well as other thinkers and artists across our communities and world.
Matakyev is a Mojave word that means “to gather our people from across the land.” A Matakyev is a Mojave cultural practice of gathering stories and conversations, from across lands and languages and peoples. It has always been a necessary and vital relationship of community and familial exchange—among the values of the matakyev are love, care, resistance, relation-building, catalyzing of wonder, relentless inquiry, and the simultaneity of remembering and imagining.
The Matakyev Research Residency is a condition of relationality—in energy, intention and practice—articulating old and a new ways of constellating difficult or unexpected but necessary encounters and interactions from some of the most energetic and visionary hearts and imaginations.
Surveillance and Sensuality
Center for Imagination in the Borderlands
Inaugural Matakyev Research Residency
February 10-11, 2020 - 2022
Josh Begley
Josh Begley is a data artist, app developer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the creator of Metadata+, an iPhone app that tracks U.S. drone strikes. Begley is the director of two short films, Concussion Protocol (2018) and Best of Luck with the Wall (2016), both produced by Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras. His work has appeared at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Met Breuer, New York Film Festival, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Simone Browne
Simone Browne is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Her first book, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, examines surveillance with a focus on transatlantic slavery, biometrics, airports and creative texts.
Madiha Tahir
Madiha Tahir is a writer and scholar engaged with issues of war, surveillance, and empire. A former journalist, her work has appeared in several media outlets including Al-Jazeera, Vice, Funambulist, Foreign Affairs, Caravan, Democracy Now!, Costs of War, Guernica, PRI and BBC’s "The World", and elsewhere. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University focusing on drone warfare. Tahir is also the director of Wounds of Waziristan, a short documentaryfilm on survivors of drone attacks. She is the co-founder of the bilingual, online journal Tanqeed, with Mahvish Ahmad, and the co-editor of Dispatches from Pakistan, a volume of essays in a series on timely issues spearheaded by Vijay Prashad. Tahir is currently collaborating on a film project on Pakistani movements, and a research grant on questions of data and political violence.
Michelle Téllez
Dr. Michelle Téllez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. She writes about transnational community formations (and disruptions), Chicana feminism, and gendered migration across multiple publishing formats, from academic journals and books to publicly-engaged scholarship and digital media. She co-edited The Chicana M(other)work Anthology: Porque Sin Madres No Hay Revolución, published in March of 2019. Dr. Téllez is on the editorial review board for Chicana/Latina Studies, the executive board of directors for the Southwest Folklife Alliance and serves on the board for the UA Consortium on Gender Based Violence.