performance
gesture: a movement that expresses thought or feeling
gesture: a movement that expresses thought or feeling
destruction is desirable, 2024-25
performance series (Black Mountain College, Ren's Garage, A.P.E. Gallery)
Grounded in the work of Black Mountain College faculty M.C. Richards and David Tudor, “Destruction is desirable” is a two-person site-and-community-engaged performance piece. The piece has been performed on multiple occasions, including at the Black Mountain College RE/Happening, Ren's Garage (site of Emily Dickinson's childhood home), and A.P.E. Gallery.
silo series, 2024-25
performance series
In an attempt to revive the destroyed and desolate, we converted a coal silo into a sound silo. Two performances have been hosted in the space with 12 musicians addressing themes of death and birth.
In the 2025 season we aim to bring four shows to the space.
ghost pipe, 2023
performance
An improvisational vignette based on embodying the ghost pipe flower. It inspired by butoh dance, specifically Atsushi Takenouchi's flower practice. The staging for the piece is site based and objects become performers.
what still lingers, 2023-24
performance / staging
what still lingers, choreographed by Molly Fletcher Lynch-Clark, is part of an ongoing embodied research project. the coreograhic process involved interviewing students about their experiences during the pandemic and examining the enduring and complex ripple effects of the perpetual thereafter.
le bal des folles: the madwomen's ball, 2021
happening
An onsite performance piece in 2021 at Le Centre Pompadour in Normandy, France. Inspired by inherited ball gowns and smoking jackets, the piece inflates the gender binary through an exploration in hysteria, narcissism, and luxury.
The artists in residence reenact the 19th century balls of neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot which showcased his “hysterical” female patients for Paris’s elite. Dressed in ornate mid-century Austrian ball-gowns and smoking-jackets the artists contrast presumed feminine hysteria with masculine narcissism in a parodic inflation of the gender binary. Reinventing the maternal hand-me-down as an artifact of reinvigorated ritual, Le Bal Des Folles complicates the transactional nature of re-use and gendered inheritance.
The resulting series of doctored photographic portraits are at once amusing and disturbing. Toying with the decay and transition of gender presentation over time; the artists confront pervasive dualities within power, identity, class, and sexual politics. In a seemingly contradictory nature, the gender masquerades are in playful tension with the ingrained rejection of glamour, recognizing the comedy and constraint of so-called luxury. From a formal perspective, and in the vein of Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus and Adrian Piper; the photographs question the aesthetics of violation and voyeurism, reclaiming a sense of exploratory adornment independent of the male gaze. The contorted photographs and accompanied hybrid photo-narrative, instigate an important shift from masculine diagnosis to feminist dissemination and from self-portraiture to collective-performance.
ode, 2019
performance series
Performance series as an ode to the ocean alongside the United Nations and Studio Lyra’s weocean conservation campaign. Artists were invited to embody and express their understanding of ‘gender and the ocean’ via movement, spoken word, and sound. The audience ranged from diplomats, to artists, to activists. I co-produced and performed in the series. Photo of Nilaya Sabnis by Ben Cole.
- Locations include: Lesley Heller Gallery, Peace Boat, Climate Week, Prospect Park, and the United Nations Headquarters
- Artists and collaborators include: Kiran Jandu, Nilaya Sabnis, Zach Para, Sebastian Lindstrom, Ignabu, Kasa Overall, Hinano Tevai Murphy, Lynn Zebeda, and more.
untitled body talk, 2008
silver gelatin print
10 x 8 in
A play with ornamenting the female body. The blur between objects and bodies is recurring in my current work.
Body Talk series: Photographic interventions that occurred in an all-women's academic environment. After multiple dialogues on gender performativity, objectification, beauty and desire. While the project began as an intellectual pursuit, it evolved into an intimate play with seemingly dangerous topics.
untitled body talk, 2008
silver gelatin print
4 x 5 in triptych
A play with masking intersecting identities. The notion of objects extending narratives is recurring in my current work.
Body Talk series: Photographic interventions that occurred in an all-women's academic environment. After multiple dialogues on gender performativity, objectification, beauty and desire. While the project began as an intellectual pursuit, it evolved into an intimate play with seemingly dangerous topics.
*Viewing notes: the piece can also be printed in large format as pictured
untitled, 2022-23
series of happenings
A series of happenings expressing gender narratives through somatic experiencing and improvisational movement. The pieces arise from casual conversations with friends and exist primarily as a private practice, yet will sometimes take the form of impromptu performances.
The sketches address a range of topics including: dismantling pain-filled love at the house of Frida and Diego, queer club culture as a cure, the trickledown effect of corporate harassment lawsuits, over-activity restricting movement, reviving pansexuality in Pompeii.