N.Y. Fashion Institute of Technology Professor to Talk April 15 at Cal Poly

Michelle Handelman, a 2011 Guggenheim fellow and associate professor of film and media at the New York Fashion Institute of Technology, will speak at 6:10 p.m. Tuesday, April 15, in Room 114 in the Baker Center (Building 180) at Cal Poly.

Handelman will provide a look into the stories, personal connections and histories behind her latest three video installation projects: “This Delicate Monster,” based on Charles Baudelaire's 1857 volume of French poetry “The Flowers of Evil”; “Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume,” based on Oscar Wilde's 1889 novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”; and “Irma Vep, The Last Breath,” based on the character Irma Vep from the 1915 silent film “Les Vampires.” 

This trilogy transforms gothic literary and film works into contemporary pieces that interweave personal history and the history of her performers through a queer feminist lens.

According to her website, Handelman “uses video, live performance and photography to make confrontational works that explore the sublime in its various forms of excess and nothingness.” 

The presentation is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Cal Poly Art & Design and Women's & Gender Studies departments with support from the College of Liberal Arts’ Lottery Fund.