Martine Syms

Martine Syms
Born	1988 Los Angeles
Nationality	American
Education	School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Known for	artist, critic, publisher
Website	http://martinesyms.com/

Martine Syms (born 1988) is an American artist based in Los Angeles who works in publishing, video, and performance. In 2007, she coined "conceptual entrepreneur" as her area of practice. Though presently ambivalent to framing her activity by capitalist terms, her self-identified title sustains one of her main ideas: self-determination through a sustainable institution, which stems from her interest in independent music and black-owned businesses. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened at venues including Human Resources, Bridget Donahue Gallery, the New Museum, Kunsthalle Bern, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Index Stockholm, MOCA Los Angeles, and MCA Chicago.

In 2007, Syms received an BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2009, Syms graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.From 2007-2011 Syms ran Golden Age, an artist-run space in Chicago. Her work often explores contemporary black identity, queer theory, and the power of language through video, performance, writing and other media. Syms is the founder of Dominica Publishing, an artists' press dedicated to exploring blackness in contemporary art and visual culture.

In 2011, Syms published "Implications and Distinctions," an exploration of the performance of blackness in contemporary cinema, as part of the Future Plan and Program project created by Steffani Jemison.

In 2013, Syms published “The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto” through Rhizome. In her manifesto Syms calls for black diasporic artistic producers to create culture that focuses on a more realistic future on earth. Syms writes:

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