What happens when nine SAIC alumni meditate on the topic of freedom?
How do they relay freedom? Can it be passed to the next person like a baton?
Can freedom be communal? Must it be individual?
RELAY FREEDOM -- is a series of video works by nine artists, curated by Mark Jeffrey. Starting November 12, a new artist will present their work on this website and the social media channels of the Goethe-Institut Chicago. Your reaction to these posts will serve as one model of how freedom spreads: is it via social media of an organization, via word of mouth, through the artist communities? Does it make a difference who knows about it, talks about it, shares it?
In November and December Relay Freedom showed works by nine SAIC alumni that explored their understanding of freedom. Closing the series of videos and performances, we will gather on April 1 at Co-Prosperity Sphere with a screening of all works and some live performances that will also be available as a live stream.
I've recently been captivated by rhythms that are humanly unintuitive — arrhythmic, off kilter, too slow or too fast. Is there something free here, at the extremity of perception? What is the feeling of freedom in sound?
Free of charge > Free of care > Free of cost > Free of germs > Free of tax > Free of zone > Free of state > Free of rules > Free of burden > Free of pain > Free of disease > Free of germs > Free of lies > Free of truth > Free of words > Free of fear > Free of mind > Free of nets > Free of errors > Free of fault > Free of guilt > Free of harm > Free of love > Free of hate > Free of god > Free of Freedom.
Exhale Completely is a video poem that explores a mermaid’s sense of bodily constraint and freedom. What must we shed or leave behind to be our true selves? Artist Nereida Patricia poses as a mermaid herself, narrating a post-transformation meditation on how to find the ecstatic.
The performances I create often examine facets of trauma, racism, xenophobia, grief, shame, healing and meanings of home that are rooted in honoring, understanding and celebrating life, death, identity and ancestral lineage.
My work sits between dispute and mediation, both materially and inter-personally. Through multiple modes of communication, my work seeks to undermine constructs of a broadly defined 'authority'—striving for stability in groundlessness. My work is often not what it seems and exactly what it seems, simultaneously.
Freedom
To create
Live outside the norms.
Without fears.
Creating your own
Being. Without
Limits. Seeing
Yourself in others
Without Qualms
Freedom - Transcend - Go beyond
In an attempt to present and create space for varied presentations of masculinity, my practice brings attention to queer Asian men and their desires, which have been regarded as effeminate, desexualized, and thus invisible in the West.
I make performance and lens-based work that represents the ways that fantasy infiltrates our experience of self, identity and geography. Specifically, my recent projects have focused on concepts of belonging within people living in diaspora, and how queer identities are expressed through re-enactment.
By using motion-capture in live performances, I am able to play and interact with visuals/sounds generated by the body in real-time, creating an exchange that further bridges the physical and the digital realms.
