DEBUT PV 04/12/13
DEBUT Contemporary’s Christmas Party was a success. I premiered my new performance within the box, new movements and the addition of text sewn into the material.
I have found that audiences respond really well to my performances that have a narrative. I initially created very ambiguous work, and never used an Artist Statement as i wanted audiences to focus on the performance, not the analysis of the performance. Over time my priorities have changed and I currently feel the need to bring audiences into my thought process.
This performance was also shown at the TEDxCoventGardenWomen event on the 9th December 2013. I gave a talk in the morning, then performed this piece - The Slut, the Spinster and the Perfect Woman - during the lunch break.
Details of my TEDx talk will be available online during January.
Wilmer Wilson IV. From my Paper Bag Colored Heart. Performance with inflated paper bags. A meditation on skin, objecthood, and liminality, through the historical lens of the paper bag as an implement of colorism. Performed in relation to sculptural installation titled Domestic Exchange.
Pleased to say this happened… “FRYING CHICKEN,” a video collaboration between New York based performance artists Ayana Evans and David Ian Griess of the group Future Death Toll. To see more from these artists visit: https://vimeo.com/user14692990 and www.ayanaevans.com
George Ferrandi
it felt like i knew you…, 2012 - ongoing I ride the NYC subway trains, usually in the evening when the seats are full. I focus on the shape of the space between the person sitting next to me and myself. I attempt to mentally and emotionally re-sculpt that space. In my mind, I reshape it- from the stiff and guarded space between strangers to the soft and yielding space between friends. I direct all my energy to this space between us. When the space palpably changes, and I completely feel like the stranger sitting next to me is my friend, I rest my head on that person’s shoulder…
(Source: museumuesum)
Nam June Paik, Performing La Monte Young’s “Composition 1960 No. 10” to Bob Morris (Zen for Head), (1962)
Presented during the Fluxus International Festival of New Music, this performance was Paik’s interpretation of La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 No.10 dedicated to artist Robert Morris who was quoted saying, “Draw a Straight Line and Follow it”. Paik’s performance consisted of him dipping his head, hands and tie in a bowl of ink and tomato juice and drawing a line by dragging his head along a narrow piece of paper laid out on the floor. Fluxus was concerned with carrying out deceptively simple actions in order to concentrate on the subtlety of a gesture, bringing about a fusion of art with life. In Zen for Head, Paik parodies the notion of meditative art-making by physically enacting a painting gesture using the body as a tool rather than the repository of mental or spiritual processes. The head, the source of creative thinking, becomes the mark maker, actively engaged in the process of material and action.
The ‘ulema have said - In Arabic the word for sun is feminine and the word for moon is masculine. The sun illuminates the entire world and the moon reflects its greatness.
So when Muslim men shine in excellence and perfection on the earth - they are merely reflecting the majestic light of the Muslim woman who raised and nurtured them.
Shaykh Mohammad Aslam