|
|
watch:
Make Sure to stop by the Melwood Screening Room at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, to view our first ever PGHPAF Screens: a performance art film series.
Works by: Yolanda Duarte (Venezuela) - Glory to the Brave People Adam Mathieu (FL) - Taking Down the Pole that Killed My Brother Sarah Hill (TX) - They Wonder Princess Jafar (PGH) - Short Films Cuerpo Testimonio and Javier Mican (Colombia) - Hablar Callar Eva Gentner (Germany) - Kimono Dance Charles Chace and Ginger Wagg (NC) - Mattress Power AGROFEMME (NYC) - Aint Your Goddess Aint Your Beast |
Erin Devine (DC)
Erin Devine is an artist, critic, and curator based in Washington, DC. She received her Ph.D. in Art History with a specialization in Contemporary Art from Indiana University. Her video-based and live performances are characterized by research that addresses the patriarcht of history and culture. Devine searches for parallels between the past and contemporary social issues, directing tactility of material and ambiguity of knowledge toward directional gestures that are often open-ended. She has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center and will return as a resident at Cité Internationale des Artes. She is a regular contributor to Woman's Art Journal, and her work has been shown in Mexico, Dublin, Paris, and the Mid-Atlantic region.
Nabeela Vega (IL)
Nabeela Vega is a South Asian gender/queer media artist with an interest in creative organizing. Their expressions typically utilize photography, performance, and moving image to explore post 9/11 narratives that intersect with South Asian diasporic experiences.
Their work has been exhibited nationally, internationally & in publications like The Boston Globe, The Washington Post & The Aerogram. Past curatorial projects include RQP: Radical Queer Possibilities, an organizing initiative focused on queer people of colour, and currently VIX: Virtual International Exchange, a performance platform that focuses on queering spaces places and gestures. Vega is a resident artist at Hume Chicago.
Helosia Escudero (Brazil/USA)
Heloisa Escudero grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, but relocated to the United States in 1987 where her interest in Fine Arts developed. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. She holds American, Italian and Brazilian citizenships. She is interested in conceptually based art that is both tactile and interactive. Her most recent art projects focus on art that emphasizes the participation of the viewer. In 2007 she moved to Sweden where she worked as a full-time artist, creating four successful projects and exhibiting in Sweden as well as in Spain. During this time she built the rst three BackPack Gallery Sculpture Units, starting the BackPack Gallery Project. In 2010, she relocated to New York City, where she collaborated with DJ Spooky (Paul D. Miller) in the project Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica. This collaboration was exhibited at the New York Photo Festival 2012. One of her BackPack Gallery performances was held at the popular urban park, The Highline. In the beginning of 2013 Heloisa set up her studio in Arlington, Virginia, where she is working on several art projects. When Heloisa Escudero is not in her studio making art she is working at the Hirshhorn Museum as an Exhibit Specialist. Escudero has been showing in the DC area, New York city and Boston on a regular basis and her recent solo exhibition is part of the lecture artist program at the NOVA College in Woodbridge, VA. Heloisa is will be the Artist In Residency at the Montgomery College this Fall 2017.
Rudy Shepherd (NYC)
Rudy Shepherd’s work explores the nature of evil through the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture and performance. This exploration involves investigations into the lives of criminals and victims of crime. He explores the complexity of these stories and the grey areas between innocence and guilt in a series of paintings and drawings of both the criminals and the victims, making no visual distinctions between the two. Going along with these portraits is a series of sculptures called the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorbers and Healing Devices. They are a group of sculptures meant to remove negative energy from people allowing them to respond to life with the more positive aspects of their personality. Rudy Shepherd received a BS in Biology and Studio Art from Wake Forest University and an MFA in Sculpture from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. He has been in group exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, NY, The Studio Museum of Harlem, NY, Bronx Museum of Art… among many others.
Park Hyun Gi (VA)
Park Hyun Gi is a Korean American artist born in Bryan, TX, and grew up in Raleigh, NC. She currently resides in Richmond, VA where she attended Virginia Commonwealth University and obtained her BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media. She grew up playing violin and soccer, and has never had braces or eaten a burger before. Hyun Gi is a left-handed Leo who also enjoys bookbinding, sewing, and herbalism aside from her art practice.
Slowdanger (PGH)
Taylor Knight and Anna Thompson are founding directors of slowdanger, a Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary performance duo that fuses sound and movement into an elusive, but illustrative combination of improvised contemporary and post-modern dance frameworks, found material, electronic instrumentation, vocalization, physiological centering and ontological examination.
Sofia Sandoval (Colombia/USA)
Sofia Sandoval is originally from Cali, Colombia and immigrated to the US in 2001. She has lived in Idaho, Texas and Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on the relationship between place and identity, particularly how her lived experiences in a specific place impact/influence her identity. Place for her can be tide to geographical location or to a set group of people/community. Sofia earned her BA in Studio Arts and BS in Natural Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016. She was a 2016-2017 Coro Fellow in Public Affairs and will attend Harvard Medical School in the fall of 2017.
Alex D’Agostino (MD)
Alexander D’Agostino is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, and arts organizer based in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009 with a BFA in painting. He investigates the queer and otherworldly through dance, ritual, teaching, installation and performance art. Alexander teaches dance and movement research and develops new performances with his collaborator Noelle Tolbert. Together they have performed throughout Baltimore, DC, Pittsburgh, and New York City. His own work has been presented at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, the Center for Contemporary Art in Afghanistan in Kabul, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Chashama’s Summer performance series in Manhattan, Panoply Performance Laboratory and Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, Art in Odd Places in Orlando Florida and Most recently Alex presented “The Swan” in Itinerant Performance Art Festival at the Queens Museum.
Princess Jafar (PGH)
Queer Trans Middle Eastern Performance and Visual Artist, Mario Josie / Princess Jafar / @jinnfag takes audiences from war-torn 1970s Beirut to a modern American hoarder's nest. Weaving narrative, performative drag and video installation Josie creates hypnotic glimpses into trauma and allows audiences to safely revisit vulnerable moments in an attempt to heal.
Christian Cruz (TX)
Christian Cruz works within movement and poetry. Cruz explores themes such as labor, xicanisma (Chicana feminism), and social media while proving masterful in beauty and love. Cruz is provocative yet dares to be boring in short-form performances, installations, videos, interactive/participatory and long durational performances since 2011. Cruz began creating live works in Chicago, and soon after exhibited in such cities as Helsinki, Finland, Mexico City, Mexico, and Boston, USA, among others. Currently based in Dallas, TX and only performing when stipends are given because she believes performing for free will never lift the artist economy.
Berivan Sayici (Austria)
After her studies of photography at the university ofapplied arts vienna (2012) and contextual painting at the academy of fine arts vienna (2014), Berivan Sayici works with different mediums from video, photography, installations and her own body as a form of live art and performance work.
Anna Azizzy (PGH)
Anna Azizzy processes their identity by performing absurd and hilarious exaggerations of their life and wishes. Their practice spans many mediums, including performance art, video art, experimental music, and gymnastics, most often working with wonky green screen animation, flamboyant characters, and soft sculpture. Anna is from Pittsburgh, where they earned their BA in Experimental Theater and Sculptural Performance at Carnegie Mellon University, work various art gigs, coach gymnastics, and host the Side Split Variety Show. Their most recent body of work “For Retired Gymnast” is an absurd and hilarious multimedia performance depicting a fictional gymnastics team, their coach, and their moms, all of whom struggle with sexual shame, queerness, and the urge to keep their true identities secret.
Katie Kehoe (Canada)
Born in Canada, Katie received her MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD; and prior to that completed the Canadian Film Center Media Lab’s Interactive Art and Entertainment Program in Toronto, ON and earned a BA Honors from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS. Her work has been presented across Canada and the US and reviewed by critics such as Becky Hunter for Art Papers Magazine, Eames Armstrong for Performa Magazine and Gary Michael Dault for The Globe and Mail; exhibition highlights include: The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD - where her work showed alongside the Yes Men; Norte Maar Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI; Free Fall Festival, SummerWorks Festival, Verso Gallery and TYPE Books Gallery in Toronto, ON. Katie is currently a Fleur and Charles Bresler Artist Resident at VisArts in Rockville, MD
Heather Sincavage (PA)
Heather Sincavage is an interdisciplinary artist using drawing, sculpture, installation and performance as part of her studio practice. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in many solo and group exhibitions. She recently was featured in the Vertigo Performance Art Series in Waterloo, Iowa. She was a fellow at Can Serrat International Art Center, El Bruc, Spain; Arteles Creative Center in Hameenkyro, Finland; Artix Creativo Espacio in Zaragoza, Spain, and Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She has also attended the NES Artist Residency in Skagastrond, Iceland and SIM Artist Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sanchez (RI)
Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sanchez is a Colombian performance artist, visual artist, and educator. He creates collaborative collisions between public and performer, inviting immersion and participation by creating spaces that script the way audiences engage. His recent work activates his body and archives as unmoored travelers: passing through sites of the national, medical, theological, and familial — leaving remnants in their wake. Lundberg Torres Sanchez’s work has appeared in spaces including the PHI Centre (Montreal), SP Escola de Teatro (Sao Paulo), Zona 30 (Lima), El Bunker (La Paz), Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Queens Museum, Panoply Performance Laboratory… among many others.
Summer Leavitt (PGH)
Leavitt Summer is writing the movie script of her life as it happens & making promises to the past and the future.
Maximiliano (OR)
maximiliano is an artist x curator from dallas, tx currently living in portland, or. they work in performance x video x installation x poetry. they are a product of black x latinx diaspora. their practice is based in ritual x mythos, holding space, healing of trauma to black x brown bodies collectively x individually, increasing visibility x community of artists of color in portland through collaborative projects. NAT TURNER PROJECT, a nomadic radical art space ( NTP will be holding a juneteenth bbq in st johns this summer with c3 initiative as artist-n-residence) and CVLLEJERX a communities of color focused art x fashion x performance collective (CVLLEJERX are PICA 2016 precipice fund recipients and will be holding an art event x party - FUEGX this summer as well). maximiliano also hosts SAVAGE PDX as YOUNG TEXAS on local radio station freeform portland highlighting POC issues x organizations x events in portland. maximiliano has an upcoming residency with RESIDENCY IN THE GARDEN. they have exhibited x performed x curated in dallas, tx, san antonio, tx, oklahoma, washington, s1 portland, disjecta, and gallery 114 in portland.
Dave English and Middle Children (PGH)
Dave grew up in a family that lived on top of a funeral home just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. The son of an embalmer dad and an elementary school teacher/fabric artist mom, Dave obviously grew up to become a puppeteer. Dave received a BFA in Theater and Puppetry from West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts in 2001. He attended the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center as a young puppeteer gaining inspiration from some of the masters in the field. He moved around the world always learning more about puppets, masks, creature and costume making from Prague to New Orleans to Middle-Of-Nowhere's-Ville. Dave helped to establish and served as an officer with two different puppet guilds; The Charleston Guild of Puppeteers and The Puppetry Guild of Pittsburgh. He also co-founded The Schmutz Company which put a decade of children and adults in the driver’s seat as puppeteers and storytellers. Dave currently lives in low-key happening Pittsburgh, PA, performs with puppets around the country, and works to promote puppetry as an accessible and relevant art form.
Ying Liu (China/USA)
I work in an array of media: film/video, performance, new media, sound art, design, installation, textiles, animation and choreography. I am interested in jamming a large number of tiny thoughts into one work rather than beginning with a big idea. A method informed by my perception of the world. I trust that, with extensive layering, editing and sequencing, an order WILL emerge. And whatever that order might be, the work would come TOGETHER and further propel ITSELF into a system. Research plays an essential role. It is not only out of necessity but also a conceptual challenge. Likewise, my year-long research on late performance artist Stuart Sherman’s poetry, which is largely unknown to the public, culminated in Don’t Be Shy, Man! – a hybrid show inspired by Stuart Sherman’s poetry. My work relies on thinkership as much as viewership. It attempts to propose alternative ways of seeing and thinking as opposed to giving in to polarity, and empirical hierarchies and values. The work’s playful subversion of the obvious is central. And my background as a filmmaker has informed the way I “edit” and compose my audiences and foster an open and inclusive community through diversifying my performers and collaborators.
Fumi Amano (Japan)
Fumi Amano was born in 1985 in Aichi, Japan. She studied Art Education at the University of Education in Aichi. While studying Art Education, she learned about glass making as a traditional Japanese craft and worked diligently to master all techniques presented to her. Upon graduating, she desired to learn even more about glass art. In order to expand her horizons and take her knowledge to the next level, she moved to Toyama to study at the Toyama Institute of Glass Art. In Toyama she studied glass art from completely different perspectives than she had previously studied in Aichi. While still studying in Toyama, Fumi received the best student award at the Nijima International Glass Art Festival. In 2009, Fumi came to the United States for the first time to take a workshop at Pilchuck. Upon returning to Japan, she worked at a junior high school teaching general art while continuing to exhibit her art work at APA Gallery in Nagoya. While she was generally satisfied continuing the work that she was doing, overtime she began to gradually question how she used glass in her art work. She realized that there was much more to glass than simply using it as craft material. In order to learn more about glass and expand her horizons, she moved to Seattle, a place that many well known glass artists such as Dale Chihuly and Dante Marioni call their home. She worked in a glass blowing studio in Seattle for about a year before finally moving, in 2015, to Richmond, Virginia to formally study glass art at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Valerie Kuehne (NYC/PGH)
Valerie Kuehne is a cross-pollinated work of chaos. Fusing music, performance art, narrative, and experimental curation, she has been told that, "if this music thing doesn’t work out, she’d probably make an awesome cult leader." (Boston Public Space). Ms. Kuehne has systematically split her time between touring the planet, performing in as many unexpected settings as possible, and building a community for experimental music and performance art. Her series, The Super Coda, is an experimental cabaret that has united electrifying performers 9 years running. Ms. Kuehne’s work operates under principles of surprise, and focuses on expanding all possible forms of intimacy between performer and audience. she aspires to confront absolute transparency and brutal honesty in her work, as necessary models for performance, especially participatory ones. She has worked as a resident artist/curator at Panoply Performance Laboratory, Spectrum, JACK, Small Beast and Ange Noir. Ms. Kuehne operates a blog of music reviews and performance philosophy (www.thesupercoda.com) and frequently releases albums that blur the line between comfort and discomfort (www.dreamzoo.bandcamp.com). Ms Kuehne has performed and helped curate many festivals, including the brooklyn experimental song carnival, bipaf, the mpa-b, PAF, the hitparaden international festival for performance kunst, the experiMENTAL festival, Sonic Circuits, jazzPeru, and the Boise Creative & Experimental music festival, to name a few. Ms. Kuehne is also the creator/curator of Trauma Salon, a platform for artists to collectively and individually process trauma or, if necessary, create it. She is an advocate for those suffering from mental illness and addiction, incessantly seeking new ways to break down stigma and misconceptions about both.
Riikka Enne (Finland/England)
I mostly work in sculpture, partially found objects, partially made. I’m interested in slips in language often combined with objects to realise new meanings and stories, which are only formed in the play between the different elements, cracks between word and meaning. My practice is lead by concepts which get a life of their own in the making, in finding out what the objects want to be. The making in itself is quite intuitive, trying to find a ripple within the object that reveals something about the world that produced it and uses it. My sculptures inform my performances so I often interact with objects or materials, using my body as a tool for making. I often feel that my background in language, culture and class gave me a very different experience than where I chose to live my life. All in all, I feel that I have always existed in a place between different worlds. These experiences opened vast meanings that are the source of my inspiration.
Tyler Matthew Oyer (CA)
Called an "interdisciplinary gospel immortalist" by Kembra Pfahler of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Tyler Matthew Oyer is an artist, writer, organizer, and educator based in Los Angeles. He has presented work at MoMA PS1, REDCAT, dOCUMENTA (13), Hammer Museum, Kunstnernes Hus Oslo, Art Basel Miami Beach, Bergen Kunstall, Rogaland Kunstsenter, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, High Desert Test Sites, Highways Performance Space, Human Resources LA and the Orange County Museum of Art. He has written works of performance including GONE FOR GOLD, Shimmy Shake Earthquake, and 100 Years of Noise: Beyoncé is ready to receive you now. Oyer is represented by Cirrus Gallery and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (NY). Oyer is the founder of tir journal, an online platform for queer, feminist, and underrepresented voices. He received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2012. He will premiere his first movie, Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide, in July 2017.
Tara Fay (PGH)
Tara Fay is an independent curator, artist, and activist living in Pittsburgh, PA. Whiteness, or proximity to whiteness, is the basis of racialized privilege. Being the mother of a child who is one-fourth Black, racial dynamics are often at the forefront of our conversations. My child is white passing, and although she strongly identifies as a person color, the optics of her complexion and features do not align with that identity. Throughout my practice, which is heavily centered on exploration of identity, I analyze themes of Blackness, my own existence, and with this piece, the optics of Blackness when you’re lighter skinned. I will explore the ideology behind the one-drop rule, which was, at one point, the basis of race classification in America. This rule was more or less an assertion that if you had any degree of African American ancestry, you classified as Black. It was implemented during a time when whites were looking to more precisely define degrees of racial intermixing, and can be traced back to slavery as a way to maintain racial purity, and withold rights from any person of African American lineage.
Ru Emmons (PGH)
ru is a nonbinary/trans*, queer, white jewish/unitarian-universalist artist/activist living in pittsburgh, pa. they live in and build intentional community, engaging in creative resistance to isolation, ignorance, and oppression. they works at a birth center in pittsburgh & dreams of socialized, trans* and trauma-centric healthcare for all. ru is also studying massage therapy and is so relieved to be grounding in their role as a healer in this world. they think of performance art as a personal and interactive way of experiencing healing. ru has performed in dance and performance art for the last three years, most recently appearing in memory 5 with slowdanger. they have also performed with david bernabo at the new hazlett and presented original work at the lightlab series.
Katie Macyshyn (MD)
Katie Macyshyn is from Toms River, NJ. In 2013, she received her BFA, with a focus in performance art, from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Macyshyn’s art uses high camp to make the profane spiritual and vice versa. She has been included in various exhibitions including the (e)merge Art Fair at the Capitol Skyline Hotel, Soapbox series at Hillyer Arts Space, and NEXT at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Macyshyn currently lives and works in Baltimore.
FILM
Glory to the Brave People - Yolanda Duarte (Venezuela)
I AM A HUNTER WORDS, A COMPULSIVE TRAVELER, A VISUAL RESEARCHER AND FOR CHOICE OF LIFE ARTIST. MY ORIGINS AND MY LIFE IS DIVIDED BETWEEN VENEZUELA (THE COUNTRY WHERE I WAS BORN) AND COLOMBIA (WHERE I LIVE).
I’M A GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS MFA IN MENTION PAINTING UNEARTES NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS – CARACAS VENEZUELA. AS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST I HAVE EXHIBITED MY WORK IN DIFFERENT SPACES INCLUDING THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN BOGOTÁ AND CARACAS, SAATCHI GALLERY EDUCATIONAL SPACE LONDON, CENTER POMPIDOU FRANCE, UNIVERSITY CENTRAL OF VENEZUELA CARACAS, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS HELSINKI FINLAND, MAMBO BOGOTA COLOMBIA, WITZENHAUSEN GALLERY AMSTERDAM, AND OTHER PLACES. yol.live.nu
Taking Down the Pole that Killed My Brother - Adam Mathieu (FL)
Adam Mathieu is an artist based in Tampa, FL. He received his BFA in studio art from the University of South Florida and has had his work shown internationally. Adam's work contains themes of futility, masculinity, and the fragility of the body.Untitled - Bisola Michal
They Wonder - Sarah Hill (TX)
Sarah Hill lives and works in Austin, Texas. They have shown nationally and internationally. Sarah has performed at Le Lieu The Contemporary Art Center in Québec, Canada, at the International Performance Platform Festival in Lublin, Poland at Gallery Labirynt, and at Performatorium 2014: Festival of Queer Performance Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Sarah received their MFA from the Museum School in partnership with Tufts University, Boston. They have studied with Black Market International at the Festival of Live Art in Glasgow, Scotland. They have performed at Mobius, Proof Gallery and Anthony Greaney in Boston, Grace Exhibition Space in New York, little berlin in Philadelphia, Living Arts Space in Tulsa, Waterloo Center for Arts in Iowa and The MACC in Austin. They have screened videos in Australia, Berlin, Canada, MIX COPENHAGEN, London (FRINGE! Queer Film & Arts Fest) Miami, New York (The Armory Show) North Carolina (NCGLFF) Portugal, San Francisco (SFTFF San Francisco Transgender Film Festival), and Scotland. Sarah has worked on projects with William Pope. L (Cusp) and Roderick Buchanan (Swim).
Short Films - Princess Jafar (PGH)
Queer Trans Middle Eastern Performance and Visual Artist, Mario Josie / Princess Jafar / @jinnfag takes audiences from war-torn 1970s Beirut to a modern American hoarder's nest. Weaving narrative, performative drag and video installation Josie creates hypnotic glimpses into trauma and allows audiences to safely revisit vulnerable moments in an attempt to heal.
Hablar Callar - Cuerpo Testimonio and Javier Mican (Colombia)
"Cuerpo Testimonio" is an investigation group of the "Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas - Facultad de Artes ASAB" that inquiries the possibility of exposing the body in contemporary art. The webpage is http://cuerpotestimonio.com/
Kimono Dance - Eva Gentner (Germany)
Eva Gentner was born 1992 in Ellwangen, lives and works in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, Germany. Graduate of Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, professor: Helmut Dorner. Travel stipend to Amami Oshima / Japan
Mattress Power - Charles Chace and Ginger Wagg (NC)
Charles Chace is an artist and musician from Massachusetts who has exhibited in galleries in New York City, Miami and North Carolina. His recent works consist of a multimedia installation that included paper collage, video, and manipulatable noise machines. Other recent work includes a series of portrait paintings that Dave Bazan used for record covers. He also has an ongoing musical project under the moniker “The Paul Swest”.
Ginger Wagg is a dance artist focused on improvisation and multidisciplinary collaboration. To bring visibility to experimental performance, she seeks alternative venues and public spaces, such as city streets, hillsides, public transportation, record shops, bathrooms, her home, rock clubs and as well as the anticipated galleries and theaters. Her work has been presented at Lump Gallery, the Torus Building, and the Carrack Modern Art (NC); Defibrillator Performance Gallery (Chicago, IL); Spare Room (Baltimore, MD); the National Building Museum as part of the The Big Draw, and Meat Market Gallery as part of Performance Week 2008 (Washington , DC).
Aint Your Goddess Aint Your Beast - AGROFEMME (NYC)
Tif Robinette is a director, filmmaker, performance artist, and curator of P U L S A R; a curatorial initiative led by Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón, programming dynamic live art experiences that are body-centric, site-specific, and audience interactive.
Erin Devine is an artist, critic, and curator based in Washington, DC. She received her Ph.D. in Art History with a specialization in Contemporary Art from Indiana University. Her video-based and live performances are characterized by research that addresses the patriarcht of history and culture. Devine searches for parallels between the past and contemporary social issues, directing tactility of material and ambiguity of knowledge toward directional gestures that are often open-ended. She has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center and will return as a resident at Cité Internationale des Artes. She is a regular contributor to Woman's Art Journal, and her work has been shown in Mexico, Dublin, Paris, and the Mid-Atlantic region.
Nabeela Vega (IL)
Nabeela Vega is a South Asian gender/queer media artist with an interest in creative organizing. Their expressions typically utilize photography, performance, and moving image to explore post 9/11 narratives that intersect with South Asian diasporic experiences.
Their work has been exhibited nationally, internationally & in publications like The Boston Globe, The Washington Post & The Aerogram. Past curatorial projects include RQP: Radical Queer Possibilities, an organizing initiative focused on queer people of colour, and currently VIX: Virtual International Exchange, a performance platform that focuses on queering spaces places and gestures. Vega is a resident artist at Hume Chicago.
Helosia Escudero (Brazil/USA)
Heloisa Escudero grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, but relocated to the United States in 1987 where her interest in Fine Arts developed. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. She holds American, Italian and Brazilian citizenships. She is interested in conceptually based art that is both tactile and interactive. Her most recent art projects focus on art that emphasizes the participation of the viewer. In 2007 she moved to Sweden where she worked as a full-time artist, creating four successful projects and exhibiting in Sweden as well as in Spain. During this time she built the rst three BackPack Gallery Sculpture Units, starting the BackPack Gallery Project. In 2010, she relocated to New York City, where she collaborated with DJ Spooky (Paul D. Miller) in the project Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica. This collaboration was exhibited at the New York Photo Festival 2012. One of her BackPack Gallery performances was held at the popular urban park, The Highline. In the beginning of 2013 Heloisa set up her studio in Arlington, Virginia, where she is working on several art projects. When Heloisa Escudero is not in her studio making art she is working at the Hirshhorn Museum as an Exhibit Specialist. Escudero has been showing in the DC area, New York city and Boston on a regular basis and her recent solo exhibition is part of the lecture artist program at the NOVA College in Woodbridge, VA. Heloisa is will be the Artist In Residency at the Montgomery College this Fall 2017.
Rudy Shepherd (NYC)
Rudy Shepherd’s work explores the nature of evil through the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture and performance. This exploration involves investigations into the lives of criminals and victims of crime. He explores the complexity of these stories and the grey areas between innocence and guilt in a series of paintings and drawings of both the criminals and the victims, making no visual distinctions between the two. Going along with these portraits is a series of sculptures called the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorbers and Healing Devices. They are a group of sculptures meant to remove negative energy from people allowing them to respond to life with the more positive aspects of their personality. Rudy Shepherd received a BS in Biology and Studio Art from Wake Forest University and an MFA in Sculpture from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. He has been in group exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, NY, The Studio Museum of Harlem, NY, Bronx Museum of Art… among many others.
Park Hyun Gi (VA)
Park Hyun Gi is a Korean American artist born in Bryan, TX, and grew up in Raleigh, NC. She currently resides in Richmond, VA where she attended Virginia Commonwealth University and obtained her BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media. She grew up playing violin and soccer, and has never had braces or eaten a burger before. Hyun Gi is a left-handed Leo who also enjoys bookbinding, sewing, and herbalism aside from her art practice.
Slowdanger (PGH)
Taylor Knight and Anna Thompson are founding directors of slowdanger, a Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary performance duo that fuses sound and movement into an elusive, but illustrative combination of improvised contemporary and post-modern dance frameworks, found material, electronic instrumentation, vocalization, physiological centering and ontological examination.
Sofia Sandoval (Colombia/USA)
Sofia Sandoval is originally from Cali, Colombia and immigrated to the US in 2001. She has lived in Idaho, Texas and Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on the relationship between place and identity, particularly how her lived experiences in a specific place impact/influence her identity. Place for her can be tide to geographical location or to a set group of people/community. Sofia earned her BA in Studio Arts and BS in Natural Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016. She was a 2016-2017 Coro Fellow in Public Affairs and will attend Harvard Medical School in the fall of 2017.
Alex D’Agostino (MD)
Alexander D’Agostino is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, and arts organizer based in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009 with a BFA in painting. He investigates the queer and otherworldly through dance, ritual, teaching, installation and performance art. Alexander teaches dance and movement research and develops new performances with his collaborator Noelle Tolbert. Together they have performed throughout Baltimore, DC, Pittsburgh, and New York City. His own work has been presented at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, the Center for Contemporary Art in Afghanistan in Kabul, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Chashama’s Summer performance series in Manhattan, Panoply Performance Laboratory and Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, Art in Odd Places in Orlando Florida and Most recently Alex presented “The Swan” in Itinerant Performance Art Festival at the Queens Museum.
Princess Jafar (PGH)
Queer Trans Middle Eastern Performance and Visual Artist, Mario Josie / Princess Jafar / @jinnfag takes audiences from war-torn 1970s Beirut to a modern American hoarder's nest. Weaving narrative, performative drag and video installation Josie creates hypnotic glimpses into trauma and allows audiences to safely revisit vulnerable moments in an attempt to heal.
Christian Cruz (TX)
Christian Cruz works within movement and poetry. Cruz explores themes such as labor, xicanisma (Chicana feminism), and social media while proving masterful in beauty and love. Cruz is provocative yet dares to be boring in short-form performances, installations, videos, interactive/participatory and long durational performances since 2011. Cruz began creating live works in Chicago, and soon after exhibited in such cities as Helsinki, Finland, Mexico City, Mexico, and Boston, USA, among others. Currently based in Dallas, TX and only performing when stipends are given because she believes performing for free will never lift the artist economy.
Berivan Sayici (Austria)
After her studies of photography at the university ofapplied arts vienna (2012) and contextual painting at the academy of fine arts vienna (2014), Berivan Sayici works with different mediums from video, photography, installations and her own body as a form of live art and performance work.
Anna Azizzy (PGH)
Anna Azizzy processes their identity by performing absurd and hilarious exaggerations of their life and wishes. Their practice spans many mediums, including performance art, video art, experimental music, and gymnastics, most often working with wonky green screen animation, flamboyant characters, and soft sculpture. Anna is from Pittsburgh, where they earned their BA in Experimental Theater and Sculptural Performance at Carnegie Mellon University, work various art gigs, coach gymnastics, and host the Side Split Variety Show. Their most recent body of work “For Retired Gymnast” is an absurd and hilarious multimedia performance depicting a fictional gymnastics team, their coach, and their moms, all of whom struggle with sexual shame, queerness, and the urge to keep their true identities secret.
Katie Kehoe (Canada)
Born in Canada, Katie received her MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD; and prior to that completed the Canadian Film Center Media Lab’s Interactive Art and Entertainment Program in Toronto, ON and earned a BA Honors from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS. Her work has been presented across Canada and the US and reviewed by critics such as Becky Hunter for Art Papers Magazine, Eames Armstrong for Performa Magazine and Gary Michael Dault for The Globe and Mail; exhibition highlights include: The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD - where her work showed alongside the Yes Men; Norte Maar Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI; Free Fall Festival, SummerWorks Festival, Verso Gallery and TYPE Books Gallery in Toronto, ON. Katie is currently a Fleur and Charles Bresler Artist Resident at VisArts in Rockville, MD
Heather Sincavage (PA)
Heather Sincavage is an interdisciplinary artist using drawing, sculpture, installation and performance as part of her studio practice. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in many solo and group exhibitions. She recently was featured in the Vertigo Performance Art Series in Waterloo, Iowa. She was a fellow at Can Serrat International Art Center, El Bruc, Spain; Arteles Creative Center in Hameenkyro, Finland; Artix Creativo Espacio in Zaragoza, Spain, and Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She has also attended the NES Artist Residency in Skagastrond, Iceland and SIM Artist Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sanchez (RI)
Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sanchez is a Colombian performance artist, visual artist, and educator. He creates collaborative collisions between public and performer, inviting immersion and participation by creating spaces that script the way audiences engage. His recent work activates his body and archives as unmoored travelers: passing through sites of the national, medical, theological, and familial — leaving remnants in their wake. Lundberg Torres Sanchez’s work has appeared in spaces including the PHI Centre (Montreal), SP Escola de Teatro (Sao Paulo), Zona 30 (Lima), El Bunker (La Paz), Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Queens Museum, Panoply Performance Laboratory… among many others.
Summer Leavitt (PGH)
Leavitt Summer is writing the movie script of her life as it happens & making promises to the past and the future.
Maximiliano (OR)
maximiliano is an artist x curator from dallas, tx currently living in portland, or. they work in performance x video x installation x poetry. they are a product of black x latinx diaspora. their practice is based in ritual x mythos, holding space, healing of trauma to black x brown bodies collectively x individually, increasing visibility x community of artists of color in portland through collaborative projects. NAT TURNER PROJECT, a nomadic radical art space ( NTP will be holding a juneteenth bbq in st johns this summer with c3 initiative as artist-n-residence) and CVLLEJERX a communities of color focused art x fashion x performance collective (CVLLEJERX are PICA 2016 precipice fund recipients and will be holding an art event x party - FUEGX this summer as well). maximiliano also hosts SAVAGE PDX as YOUNG TEXAS on local radio station freeform portland highlighting POC issues x organizations x events in portland. maximiliano has an upcoming residency with RESIDENCY IN THE GARDEN. they have exhibited x performed x curated in dallas, tx, san antonio, tx, oklahoma, washington, s1 portland, disjecta, and gallery 114 in portland.
Dave English and Middle Children (PGH)
Dave grew up in a family that lived on top of a funeral home just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. The son of an embalmer dad and an elementary school teacher/fabric artist mom, Dave obviously grew up to become a puppeteer. Dave received a BFA in Theater and Puppetry from West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts in 2001. He attended the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center as a young puppeteer gaining inspiration from some of the masters in the field. He moved around the world always learning more about puppets, masks, creature and costume making from Prague to New Orleans to Middle-Of-Nowhere's-Ville. Dave helped to establish and served as an officer with two different puppet guilds; The Charleston Guild of Puppeteers and The Puppetry Guild of Pittsburgh. He also co-founded The Schmutz Company which put a decade of children and adults in the driver’s seat as puppeteers and storytellers. Dave currently lives in low-key happening Pittsburgh, PA, performs with puppets around the country, and works to promote puppetry as an accessible and relevant art form.
Ying Liu (China/USA)
I work in an array of media: film/video, performance, new media, sound art, design, installation, textiles, animation and choreography. I am interested in jamming a large number of tiny thoughts into one work rather than beginning with a big idea. A method informed by my perception of the world. I trust that, with extensive layering, editing and sequencing, an order WILL emerge. And whatever that order might be, the work would come TOGETHER and further propel ITSELF into a system. Research plays an essential role. It is not only out of necessity but also a conceptual challenge. Likewise, my year-long research on late performance artist Stuart Sherman’s poetry, which is largely unknown to the public, culminated in Don’t Be Shy, Man! – a hybrid show inspired by Stuart Sherman’s poetry. My work relies on thinkership as much as viewership. It attempts to propose alternative ways of seeing and thinking as opposed to giving in to polarity, and empirical hierarchies and values. The work’s playful subversion of the obvious is central. And my background as a filmmaker has informed the way I “edit” and compose my audiences and foster an open and inclusive community through diversifying my performers and collaborators.
Fumi Amano (Japan)
Fumi Amano was born in 1985 in Aichi, Japan. She studied Art Education at the University of Education in Aichi. While studying Art Education, she learned about glass making as a traditional Japanese craft and worked diligently to master all techniques presented to her. Upon graduating, she desired to learn even more about glass art. In order to expand her horizons and take her knowledge to the next level, she moved to Toyama to study at the Toyama Institute of Glass Art. In Toyama she studied glass art from completely different perspectives than she had previously studied in Aichi. While still studying in Toyama, Fumi received the best student award at the Nijima International Glass Art Festival. In 2009, Fumi came to the United States for the first time to take a workshop at Pilchuck. Upon returning to Japan, she worked at a junior high school teaching general art while continuing to exhibit her art work at APA Gallery in Nagoya. While she was generally satisfied continuing the work that she was doing, overtime she began to gradually question how she used glass in her art work. She realized that there was much more to glass than simply using it as craft material. In order to learn more about glass and expand her horizons, she moved to Seattle, a place that many well known glass artists such as Dale Chihuly and Dante Marioni call their home. She worked in a glass blowing studio in Seattle for about a year before finally moving, in 2015, to Richmond, Virginia to formally study glass art at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Valerie Kuehne (NYC/PGH)
Valerie Kuehne is a cross-pollinated work of chaos. Fusing music, performance art, narrative, and experimental curation, she has been told that, "if this music thing doesn’t work out, she’d probably make an awesome cult leader." (Boston Public Space). Ms. Kuehne has systematically split her time between touring the planet, performing in as many unexpected settings as possible, and building a community for experimental music and performance art. Her series, The Super Coda, is an experimental cabaret that has united electrifying performers 9 years running. Ms. Kuehne’s work operates under principles of surprise, and focuses on expanding all possible forms of intimacy between performer and audience. she aspires to confront absolute transparency and brutal honesty in her work, as necessary models for performance, especially participatory ones. She has worked as a resident artist/curator at Panoply Performance Laboratory, Spectrum, JACK, Small Beast and Ange Noir. Ms. Kuehne operates a blog of music reviews and performance philosophy (www.thesupercoda.com) and frequently releases albums that blur the line between comfort and discomfort (www.dreamzoo.bandcamp.com). Ms Kuehne has performed and helped curate many festivals, including the brooklyn experimental song carnival, bipaf, the mpa-b, PAF, the hitparaden international festival for performance kunst, the experiMENTAL festival, Sonic Circuits, jazzPeru, and the Boise Creative & Experimental music festival, to name a few. Ms. Kuehne is also the creator/curator of Trauma Salon, a platform for artists to collectively and individually process trauma or, if necessary, create it. She is an advocate for those suffering from mental illness and addiction, incessantly seeking new ways to break down stigma and misconceptions about both.
Riikka Enne (Finland/England)
I mostly work in sculpture, partially found objects, partially made. I’m interested in slips in language often combined with objects to realise new meanings and stories, which are only formed in the play between the different elements, cracks between word and meaning. My practice is lead by concepts which get a life of their own in the making, in finding out what the objects want to be. The making in itself is quite intuitive, trying to find a ripple within the object that reveals something about the world that produced it and uses it. My sculptures inform my performances so I often interact with objects or materials, using my body as a tool for making. I often feel that my background in language, culture and class gave me a very different experience than where I chose to live my life. All in all, I feel that I have always existed in a place between different worlds. These experiences opened vast meanings that are the source of my inspiration.
Tyler Matthew Oyer (CA)
Called an "interdisciplinary gospel immortalist" by Kembra Pfahler of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Tyler Matthew Oyer is an artist, writer, organizer, and educator based in Los Angeles. He has presented work at MoMA PS1, REDCAT, dOCUMENTA (13), Hammer Museum, Kunstnernes Hus Oslo, Art Basel Miami Beach, Bergen Kunstall, Rogaland Kunstsenter, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, High Desert Test Sites, Highways Performance Space, Human Resources LA and the Orange County Museum of Art. He has written works of performance including GONE FOR GOLD, Shimmy Shake Earthquake, and 100 Years of Noise: Beyoncé is ready to receive you now. Oyer is represented by Cirrus Gallery and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (NY). Oyer is the founder of tir journal, an online platform for queer, feminist, and underrepresented voices. He received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2012. He will premiere his first movie, Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide, in July 2017.
Tara Fay (PGH)
Tara Fay is an independent curator, artist, and activist living in Pittsburgh, PA. Whiteness, or proximity to whiteness, is the basis of racialized privilege. Being the mother of a child who is one-fourth Black, racial dynamics are often at the forefront of our conversations. My child is white passing, and although she strongly identifies as a person color, the optics of her complexion and features do not align with that identity. Throughout my practice, which is heavily centered on exploration of identity, I analyze themes of Blackness, my own existence, and with this piece, the optics of Blackness when you’re lighter skinned. I will explore the ideology behind the one-drop rule, which was, at one point, the basis of race classification in America. This rule was more or less an assertion that if you had any degree of African American ancestry, you classified as Black. It was implemented during a time when whites were looking to more precisely define degrees of racial intermixing, and can be traced back to slavery as a way to maintain racial purity, and withold rights from any person of African American lineage.
Ru Emmons (PGH)
ru is a nonbinary/trans*, queer, white jewish/unitarian-universalist artist/activist living in pittsburgh, pa. they live in and build intentional community, engaging in creative resistance to isolation, ignorance, and oppression. they works at a birth center in pittsburgh & dreams of socialized, trans* and trauma-centric healthcare for all. ru is also studying massage therapy and is so relieved to be grounding in their role as a healer in this world. they think of performance art as a personal and interactive way of experiencing healing. ru has performed in dance and performance art for the last three years, most recently appearing in memory 5 with slowdanger. they have also performed with david bernabo at the new hazlett and presented original work at the lightlab series.
Katie Macyshyn (MD)
Katie Macyshyn is from Toms River, NJ. In 2013, she received her BFA, with a focus in performance art, from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Macyshyn’s art uses high camp to make the profane spiritual and vice versa. She has been included in various exhibitions including the (e)merge Art Fair at the Capitol Skyline Hotel, Soapbox series at Hillyer Arts Space, and NEXT at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Macyshyn currently lives and works in Baltimore.
FILM
Glory to the Brave People - Yolanda Duarte (Venezuela)
I AM A HUNTER WORDS, A COMPULSIVE TRAVELER, A VISUAL RESEARCHER AND FOR CHOICE OF LIFE ARTIST. MY ORIGINS AND MY LIFE IS DIVIDED BETWEEN VENEZUELA (THE COUNTRY WHERE I WAS BORN) AND COLOMBIA (WHERE I LIVE).
I’M A GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS MFA IN MENTION PAINTING UNEARTES NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS – CARACAS VENEZUELA. AS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST I HAVE EXHIBITED MY WORK IN DIFFERENT SPACES INCLUDING THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN BOGOTÁ AND CARACAS, SAATCHI GALLERY EDUCATIONAL SPACE LONDON, CENTER POMPIDOU FRANCE, UNIVERSITY CENTRAL OF VENEZUELA CARACAS, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS HELSINKI FINLAND, MAMBO BOGOTA COLOMBIA, WITZENHAUSEN GALLERY AMSTERDAM, AND OTHER PLACES. yol.live.nu
Taking Down the Pole that Killed My Brother - Adam Mathieu (FL)
Adam Mathieu is an artist based in Tampa, FL. He received his BFA in studio art from the University of South Florida and has had his work shown internationally. Adam's work contains themes of futility, masculinity, and the fragility of the body.Untitled - Bisola Michal
They Wonder - Sarah Hill (TX)
Sarah Hill lives and works in Austin, Texas. They have shown nationally and internationally. Sarah has performed at Le Lieu The Contemporary Art Center in Québec, Canada, at the International Performance Platform Festival in Lublin, Poland at Gallery Labirynt, and at Performatorium 2014: Festival of Queer Performance Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Sarah received their MFA from the Museum School in partnership with Tufts University, Boston. They have studied with Black Market International at the Festival of Live Art in Glasgow, Scotland. They have performed at Mobius, Proof Gallery and Anthony Greaney in Boston, Grace Exhibition Space in New York, little berlin in Philadelphia, Living Arts Space in Tulsa, Waterloo Center for Arts in Iowa and The MACC in Austin. They have screened videos in Australia, Berlin, Canada, MIX COPENHAGEN, London (FRINGE! Queer Film & Arts Fest) Miami, New York (The Armory Show) North Carolina (NCGLFF) Portugal, San Francisco (SFTFF San Francisco Transgender Film Festival), and Scotland. Sarah has worked on projects with William Pope. L (Cusp) and Roderick Buchanan (Swim).
Short Films - Princess Jafar (PGH)
Queer Trans Middle Eastern Performance and Visual Artist, Mario Josie / Princess Jafar / @jinnfag takes audiences from war-torn 1970s Beirut to a modern American hoarder's nest. Weaving narrative, performative drag and video installation Josie creates hypnotic glimpses into trauma and allows audiences to safely revisit vulnerable moments in an attempt to heal.
Hablar Callar - Cuerpo Testimonio and Javier Mican (Colombia)
"Cuerpo Testimonio" is an investigation group of the "Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas - Facultad de Artes ASAB" that inquiries the possibility of exposing the body in contemporary art. The webpage is http://cuerpotestimonio.com/
Kimono Dance - Eva Gentner (Germany)
Eva Gentner was born 1992 in Ellwangen, lives and works in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, Germany. Graduate of Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, professor: Helmut Dorner. Travel stipend to Amami Oshima / Japan
Mattress Power - Charles Chace and Ginger Wagg (NC)
Charles Chace is an artist and musician from Massachusetts who has exhibited in galleries in New York City, Miami and North Carolina. His recent works consist of a multimedia installation that included paper collage, video, and manipulatable noise machines. Other recent work includes a series of portrait paintings that Dave Bazan used for record covers. He also has an ongoing musical project under the moniker “The Paul Swest”.
Ginger Wagg is a dance artist focused on improvisation and multidisciplinary collaboration. To bring visibility to experimental performance, she seeks alternative venues and public spaces, such as city streets, hillsides, public transportation, record shops, bathrooms, her home, rock clubs and as well as the anticipated galleries and theaters. Her work has been presented at Lump Gallery, the Torus Building, and the Carrack Modern Art (NC); Defibrillator Performance Gallery (Chicago, IL); Spare Room (Baltimore, MD); the National Building Museum as part of the The Big Draw, and Meat Market Gallery as part of Performance Week 2008 (Washington , DC).
Aint Your Goddess Aint Your Beast - AGROFEMME (NYC)
Tif Robinette is a director, filmmaker, performance artist, and curator of P U L S A R; a curatorial initiative led by Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón, programming dynamic live art experiences that are body-centric, site-specific, and audience interactive.
