Interview // QAF artist Coral Short

http://www.sadmag.ca/news/2015/07/interview-qaf-artist-coral-short/

Interview // QAF artist Coral Short

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Alice Fleerackers | Leave a reply

When I first met inter­na­tional Queer per­for­mance artist Coral Short at the Queer Arts Fes­ti­val’s open­ing art party, she was wear­ing box­ing shorts and a deter­mined expres­sion. Don­ning her gloves, she walked onto stage and began to per­form her open­ing piece, Stop Beat­ing Your­self Up, a lit­eral box­ing match fought entirely–and mercilessly–against her­self. When I met Short a few days later for our inter­view, she was a rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent per­son. Relaxed, smil­ing, and as I dis­cov­ered later, a lit­tle con­cussed, Short was noth­ing like the fierce fighter I remem­bered from a few nights ago.

As we talked per­for­mance, med­i­ta­tion, and travel over after­noon cof­fee, I real­ized that Short is actu­ally both of these peo­ple: open and friendly, but also strong and, hon­estly, intim­i­dat­ing. Despite her gen­tle nature, Short clearly has no prob­lem being ruth­less when it comes to what really mat­ters: cre­at­ing pow­er­ful, boundary-pushing art.

Coral Short per­forms Stop Beat­ing Your­self Up, photo by Katie Stew­art

SAD Mag: You first per­formed Stop Beat­ing Your­self Up in 2013 at Edgy Women in Mon­treal. In a recent inter­view with Daily Xtra, you said that you chose to add some mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the piece for this year’s per­for­mance: decreas­ing the length from the orig­i­nal three hours to one and keep­ing a para­medic on hand. Why did you choose to per­form the piece again, if it was so dam­ag­ing the first time?

Coral Short: I actu­ally never wanted to do this piece again, but Artis­tic Direc­tor SD Hol­man, through the Gen­eral Man­ager, Elliott Hearte, really wanted me to do the piece and offered to fly me out here. And my lit­tle sis­ter Amber just had a baby–the first baby in the Short fam­ily, so I said, “Okay, I’m going to do this for this nephew.”

SM: You mean, beat your­self up for her child?

CS: Basi­cally! After [the per­for­mance] I sent my sis­ter a text that said, “This will make a good story one day, but my head really hurts.”

SM: Did you get any­thing new out of repeat­ing your per­for­mance? Has your orig­i­nal inten­tion or rela­tion­ship to the piece changed since 2013? 

CS: I think it did. The first time I did it, I didn’t do it with full body aware­ness. Since that time I’ve been to three vipassanas–ten day silent retreats–and I have a daily med­i­ta­tion prac­tice. Being more inside my body than I used to, [the per­for­mance] was more impactual on the cel­lu­lar struc­ture than it did orig­i­nally. Each time has been a rit­ual, but I think this [time] was more like a clo­sure: “I will stop doing this now–stop doing this very lit­eral performance–stop beat­ing myself up.” We all need to move for­ward from this inter­nal strug­gle, myself included!

It’s also really, really hard on the audi­ence. This per­for­mance, peo­ple are more with me than any other per­for­mance I’ve ever done. They’re hor­ri­fied, but they’re with me. There’s blood spurt­ing out of me, but peo­ple try to stay the course with me. Psy­cho­log­i­cally, it’s really hard on peo­ple. I can’t make eye con­tact with them, so I have to look at the wall or the cam­eras or the floor. I’m a chan­nel for the audience–a vis­ceral sym­bol for the strug­gle inside themselves.

They want to pro­tect me–they want to stop me. But no one does. When I first did the piece in 2013, I was asked by my cura­tor, “What if some­one stops you?” And I said, “It will just become part of the piece.” But no one stopped me then, and no one stopped me now. I think the audi­ence becomes trans­fixed with a hyp­notic mor­bid fascination.

Photo by Katie Stew­art

SM: Do you think that’s because it’s art, or do you think that’s just human nature?

CS: I think there’s a “This is art” thing going on. But, I think if some­one would have tried to stop me, I would have stopped. I think all it would take is just one person.

I think peo­ple almost want to see it play out. If you look back across human­ity, or to Game of Thrones, there’s always been a love of fight­ing and blood. The fight­ing pits, the colos­seum, the behead­ings –I think there’s an ele­ment of human­ity that wants to see that. Blood is powerful.

SM: In addi­tion to per­form­ing at the festival’s open­ing party, you also curated a film night this year called TRIGGERWARNING. How did you find the “fear­less Queer video art” for that event? 

CS: I travel a lot. I have about ten home bases. I move with a lot of ease in the world due to the priv­i­lege of being a triple pass­port holder. I have all these dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties that I have lived and worked in, so I meet so many more cre­ators than the aver­age per­son. While I’m mov­ing, I talk to other cura­tors, inter­act with other fes­ti­vals, other artists, every­where I go. I come across incred­i­ble film­mak­ers some of whom I have been work­ing with for almost a decade.  I’m part of a huge Queer net­work of cul­tural pro­duc­ers in Asia, North Amer­ica and Europe who I can reach out to at any time on the inter­net. We are all there for each other.

Photo by Katie Stew­art

SM: And how did you choose which ones to include? What qual­i­fied the videos as too triggering–or not trig­ger­ing enough–for the event?

CS: It’s actu­ally really hard to find trig­ger­ing work. I cut out pieces that I found prob­lem­atic in terms of race and trans issues. I didn’t want any­one to feel unwel­come in the space. In the end, I cre­ated a bill that I felt com­fort­able with and I felt other peo­ple would be com­fort­able with, but there were def­i­nitely pieces that push the limit in terms of sexuality.

SM: Were there a lot of strong reactions?

CS: Well, actu­ally it’s funny, I feel like my bill was not trig­ger­ing enough. Per­haps I have to try harder! There was blood and piss and some­one kiss­ing their par­ents and per­for­mance art on the verge of self harm. But it was a fine line, because I didn’t want to make any­one feel so uncom­fort­able that they would walk off in a bad state alone into the world.

SM: What’s been your expe­ri­ence as some­one who works both with film and per­for­mance? Do you think peo­ple react very dif­fer­ently to the two art forms?

CS: I think peo­ple are wary of per­for­mance art, because they feel that it’s an unpre­dictable medium–which it is — that is the joy of it!  A lot of my video cura­tions make per­for­mance art more palat­able in a way. And video makes it pos­si­ble to get all these artists with dynamic per­son­al­i­ties from dif­fer­ent loca­tions on one bill. That’s why I love video: all that tal­ent within three min­utes. It’s amaz­ing. For exam­ple: Mor­gan M Page, Eduardo Resrepo, and local artist Jade Yumang.

Photo by Katie Stew­art

SM: In that same Daily Xtra inter­view, you refer to Van­cou­ver cul­ture as “very PC com­pared to the east coast,” and in another inter­view with Edgy Women, you describe Mon­treal as “one of the few remain­ing metrop­o­lises that is afford­able to live cheaply and cre­ate art.” Van­cou­ver cul­ture receives a lot of this sort of criticism–among the well known, of course, is the Econ­o­mist’srecent inclu­sion of Van­cou­ver in the list of “mind-numbingly bor­ing” cities. Do you think our atti­tude will ever change, or are we for­ever doomed to be small-minded, unaf­ford­able and ulti­mately, boring?

CS: I feel like the Van­cou­ver art com­mu­nity is thriv­ing these days! There’s been a much needed show of city sup­port: a bunch of money given to VIVO and the art orga­ni­za­tions in that area. There seems to be some new stuff hap­pen­ing; there’s always some great work. I always like to find out what’s hap­pen­ing here–who the new upcom­ing artists are, like Emilio Rojas, Helen Reed and Han­nah Jickling.

Photo by Katie Stew­art

SM: Obvi­ously you’re famil­iar with the theme of this year’s fes­ti­val: draw­ing the line. As a per­former and artist, you’ve crossed many lines: from hole-puppet protests to phys­i­cal self-abuse, you don’t seem afraid to “go too far” when it comes to your craft. This might be cliche, but where (if ever) do you draw the line? And why?

CS: When I was a young artist, I used to repeat some kind of mantra that went some­thing like this:  to keep push­ing through my lim­its to go to the other side. I really wanted that to be my work: to not be afraid of any­thing. Push it as far as you can go and then push it far­ther.  That’s where it begins and where my prac­tice has grown — when I take risks and walk my own path.

But my artis­tic prac­tice has changed since I did vipas­sana. I’ve started to make places for peo­ple to sit down, because peo­ple want to relax; it’s a really fast-paced life. So I made a giant, portable nest. I give peo­ple rides with these brown, vel­vet cush­ions while they hold this egg, and they become very bird­like. Peo­ple love to sit in it. I’ve also started mak­ing this incred­i­ble earth fur­ni­ture that is opu­lently grow­ing with plants on rad­i­cal faerie sanc­tu­ary land in Ver­mont and at IDA. I’m build­ing places for peo­ple to repose, relax and be comfortable.

Pho­tos cour­tesy of Nikol Mikus

SM: Is this expe­ri­ence of com­fort some­thing you’re try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate in your art? Is that your intention?

CS: I think it just kind of hap­pened. I have almost 15 years of sobri­ety, and each year I grow into my body and cel­lu­lar struc­ture a lit­tle more. That’s com­ing through in my work. It’s all tied into med­i­ta­tion and slow­ing down. The Queer scene is soaked in sub­stances and lack of self-awareness, so liv­ing inside our bod­ies as queers is rev­o­lu­tion­ary. Self-love is radical.

The Van­cou­ver Queer Arts Fes­ti­val runs from July 23 — August 7. Event list­ings are avail­able on the fes­ti­val web­site. For more infor­ma­tion about Coral Short, fol­low her on Twit­ter and Face­book, or visit her web­site.

A Queer Feminist Haunted House Filled with Riot Ghouls and Polyamorous Vampires

• http://hyperallergic.com/245803/a-queer-feminist-haunted-house-filled-with-riot-ghouls-and-polyamorous-vampires/by Matt Stromberg on October 21, 2015

KillJoy’s Kastle, Toronto 2013 (photo by Sarah Westlake)

LOS ANGELES — As Halloween season approaches, haunted houses spring up around the country, turning people’s darkest fears into entertainment. While it’s common to address fears about death and the afterlife, other fears remain outside of the standard seasonal fare, namely those surrounding gender and sexuality. These are precisely the fears confronted head-on by KillJoy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House, an installation created by artists Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue.

Mitchell first got the idea when she was traveling around Canada with another artwork of hers, “Ladies Sasquatch” (2006–10). That piece is composed of numerous oversized she-beast figures covered in faux-fur and pelts, complete with cartoonish breasts and, in some cases, plush genitalia. The figures are menacing and whimsically inviting at the same time.

Allyson Mitchell, “Ladies Sasquatch” (detail), as featured in Alien She at the Orange County Museum of Art, 2015 (photo by the author)

Mitchell was surprised when venue after venue asked her to include a warning about sexual or adult content. “What is it that raised an alarm bell for them, that there was something wrong here?” she asked when I sat down with her and Logue last week. “For me, it’s this point that breaks through the polite veneer of contemporary gay acceptance. It’s OK for two white people of the same sex to get married and have a mortgage and pay taxes, but they don’t want dirty, unassimilated dykes. That’s what those sasquatches are — because they’re feral, they’re a coven. After that, it was ‘lesbian feminist’ everything. Let’s push these boundaries and see what happens.”

Mitchell said another influence on the project was the historically common evangelical Christian “Hell Houses,” one of which was featured in the 2001 documentary Hell House. Unlike traditional haunted houses, these are moralizing experiences, highlighting the dangers of “sinful” activities such as drug use, premarital sex, abortion, and homosexuality. At KillJoy’s Kastle, Mitchell and Logue turn this model on its head, replacing a didactic, narrow-minded experience with one that combines playful irreverence with an open-ended exploration of radical feminism.

“We’re using camp aesthetics, sculpture, installation, and performance to undermine those ridiculous stereotypes, but also to investigate some real monstrosities of queer activism and feminist organizing,” Mitchell said. “We’re trying to strike a balance between not only being celebratory, but also trying to dig up some of the more painful ghosts and spirits that are part of our legacies.”

KillJoy’s Kastle, Toronto 2013 (photo by Lisa Kannakko)

When Killjoy’s Kastle premiered in the pair’s native Toronto in 2013, it was wildly popular, with 800 visitors on opening night. It also attracted the attention of the Canadian right-wing media, who were outraged that tax dollars were going to support such a crass example of debauchery. They also seemed completely oblivious to the self-reflexive humor in the piece, unable the look past the tired stereotype of the humorless feminist. (The conservative press finally lost interest when a bigger story broke: the release of a video capturing Rob Ford, then-mayor of Toronto, smoking crack.)

The installation then traveled to the BFI in London for a much smaller show, after which the duo vowed they would never put it on again, as it was such a massive undertaking. But then earlier this year, the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives invited them down to stage it in LA. The pair found a perfect location in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park, in a building that served as a meeting place for ACT UP, the activist organization formed in the ’80s to combat the AIDS crisis. For the past few weeks, the artists and a team of volunteers have been working on assembling a spectacle that will fuse craft traditions — tie-dye, papier-mâché, crochet, hand-signage — with lighting and music, all brought to life by a rotating cast of fifty performers.

KillJoy’s Kastle, Toronto 2013 (photo by Lisa Kannakko)

When the house opens this Friday, groups will be escorted through the experience by a “demented women’s studies professor.” On their trip they will encounter such characters as lesbian zombie folk singers, riot ghouls, and polyamorous geriatric vampires. While the artists have kept many aspects from earlier versions alive in this one, they’ve also made some updates. The Crypt of Dead Lesbian Feminist Organizations — a hallowed burial ground for groups whose moment has passed — will be augmented with institutions specific to LA. Partially in response to questions of transphobia, they have also modified the “Ball-Buster” — a character who smashes plaster casts of truck nuts in a critique of white patriarchy. They’re hoping to enlist a prominent local transgender performer to step into that role, putting a new spin on it.

At the end of the tour, visitors meet with real-life feminist killjoys who talk to them about their experience. “Rather than asking people to accept an ideology, we’re asking people to have a critique, to have an opinion, to question it, to question us,” Mitchell said. So we asked a question: What exactly is a feminist killjoy?

“The killjoy comes from Sarah Ahmed, a cultural theorist who wrote this book The Promise of Happiness,” Mitchell told me. “She talks about how feminist killjoys are identified as humorless, as having something wrong with them because they won’t play along. We have a cast of killjoys who are academics, activists, and artists.”

Killjoys are the ones who “ruin Christmas dinner by calling Grandpa out on his racist joke,” Logue adds.

“Or the woman of color in a feminist gathering who asks why she’s the only woman of color there,” says Mitchell.

“They have reputations for holding people accountable and being very vocal and public about that,” says Logue.

“The bottom line is it’s not a trial by fire in the killjoy room,” Mitchell reassures me. “They’re actually really nice and super sweet.”

KillJoy’s Kastle, Intersectional Feminist Room, 2015 (photo by Sarah Westlake)

More than simply poking fun at tired clichés, KillJoy’s Kastle is about critically and playfully reassessing both the history and the future of feminist and queer politics. “There are some ideas from 1970s feminism that are far more radical than the ideas coming out of contemporary lesbian and gay organizing,” Mitchell said. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but let’s try to understand a lesbian feminism that includes trans people, that is anti-racist and sex positive. It’s about trying to create a queer new world.”

KillJoy’s Kastle continues in Plummer Park (1200 North Vista Street, West Hollywood, California) through October 30.

About the exhibition: "Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980"

http://www.out.com/art-books/2015/9/18/politics-partying-nightlife-activism

ENTERTAINMENTART & BOOKS

The Politics of Partying: Nightlife as Activism

The curators of the new exhibit, Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980, discuss 

BY M. SHARKEY

SEPTEMBER 18 2015 9:46 AM EDT

456 SHARES

Sometimes the most powerful political action is simply self-expression. It seems like an apparent enough notion when you stop to think about it but in this age of the ubiquitous selfie, self-expression often feels like a narcissistic exercise in self-admiration.

New York in the late seventies and early eighties was quite different. To be seen in public playing with gender and freely conveying your sexuality was nothing short of radical and often had severe consequences. When the AIDS epidemic hit, political action turned militant and as scores of the downtown population died-off, nightlife played refuge to an embattled community and provided crucial cathartic release. It is precisely this convergence of sex, politics, death, grief and--at the same moment--celebration that is at the heart of this year’s annual Visual AIDS exhibition at La Mama Galleria, titled Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980 (through Oct. 10). Co-curator Emily Colucci beautifully eulogizes the era with this invocation:

“We dance for The Saint, The Anvil, Mineshaft, the Toilet, El Mirage, J’s and the Hellfire Club. We dance for MEAT, the Clit Club and Pork. We dance for club Chandelier, Squeezebox, the Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge, Danceteria, AREA, the Roxy, the Tunnel, Limelight, Palladium and Paradise Garage. We dance for those spaces still operating that have been irrevocably altered by the ever-evolving city. And finally, we dance for those spaces that continue in the legacy of the formative, campy, radical, revolutionary vision of the bygone days and nights, sustaining nightlife’s legacy of activism.”

The show includes artworks and artifacts by such luminaries as Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar alongside — and in conversation with — contemporary work by Kia Labeija, John Waters, Wu Tsang, and Chloe Dzubilo among others.

I sat down with the co-curators Colucci and Osman Can Yerebakan to talk about Party Out of Bounds, the exhibition’s conception and the current state of New York City nightlife.

Photo with head of Emily Colucci by M. Sharkey

XXM: Can you tell me a little bit about the intersection of activism and nightlife as it pertains to the show?

Emily Colucci: These clubs were places for community very early on in the crisis. Before they even knew what to call AIDS, clubs threw benefits for the community members and performers who were getting sick. There were benefits for Hibiscus, who was part of The Cockettes, at Danceteria in 1981 or ‘82.

Osman Can Yerebakan: Keith Haring designed cards for benefits. It was a place to see that you were not the only one. A person living with AIDS or HIV could share their diagnosis with other people, their experience.

EC: A lot of clubs had ACT UP benefits. GMHC’s first benefit was in a club. This really was for community to come together. That narrative is sort of lost in what people think of AIDS activism. People think of ACT UP’s Stop the Church and these kind of very public moments. I think the show is looking at nightlife as a subset of activism that has not been looked into much.

When I think of nightlife I tend to think of performance, both by the patrons and also the paid performers. Something that comes to mind is Leigh Bowery. Can you talk about personal expression and how that relates to politics? 

EC: I was just going to say, someone like Leigh Bowery or Ethyl Eichelberger or John Sex… even if what they were doing was not obviously political —they weren’t carrying around signs — I find these transformations into their personas to be political. It was a safe space for people. You can be whoever you want to be inside the space. Looking at Nelson Sullivan’s videos you see that it was a special place where people could try on different identities without fear. While this is not political in the sense of capital “P” Politics, I find that it is political. Put on these different expressions, play around with gender, sexual identity…

OY: The act of being who you are is a political way of saying “fuck you.”

EC: And that is part of our show. I see that as activism. And art as well.

OY: Even outside of AIDS, gay nightlife culture is what we do.

EC: That is why we specifically called the show “Nightlife As Activism” rather than just AIDS activism, because while that is part of it, there are other sorts of activism happening.

OY: Gender.

EC: Sexuality.

Photo with head of Osman Can Yerebakan by M. Sharkey

This is a powerful idea and I think it is also a very interesting way to frame performance moving into the future. I noticed going through the catalog that there are a number of historical artifacts, which act as touchstones for the contemporary artists in the show. Can you talk about the dialogue between these historical remnants and contemporary interpretations or reactions?

OY: We wanted to bring it to now because definitely there is a legacy that is still being referred to, artists like Kia LaBeija or Conrad Ventur are still holding onto a legacy.

EC: It was important to show these not just as artifacts. I think a lot of people approaching the show think it is just about the '80s but it was really important to bring it into the present, to show that activism – and specifically AIDS activism – is happening now too.

OY: It is an ongoing dialogue.

EC: The HIV/AIDS crisis is not over. It was important to put all these objects in communication with each other.

OY: This is the period to make that bridge between the past and the present.

What are some of the highlights?

OY: I really like Conrad’s piece. It is basically a YouTube performance projected onto a disco ball. It is a new piece, so we don’t know exactly what is coming. I also love Chloe Dzubilo’s drawings.

EC: It’s like choosing your favorite child! I am really excited about Hunter Reynolds. He is doing a new work based on photographs we found in the Visual AIDS archive which are documents of his first mummification he did at The Lure for a Visual AIDS benefit. He has a solo show that opened that uses some of these mummification photos from the present. To be able to see that historical legacy… I don’t think anyone has seen these photos before. So this is a really important moment in his career and his history, in Visual AIDS’s history, in activist history, and it really shows the merging of these things together.

As I was explaining earlier, I was lucky enough to see a mummification performance around the time these documents were created, in 1998. Because it was so long ago my mind is a bit fuzzy about who was doing the performance. I had always remembered it as Ron Athey, which it may well have been. For the audience reading this interview, can you talk about what this performance is?

EC: Hunter has done these mummification performances at The Lure and everywhere. Typically what happens is he stands while assistants cover him in plastic and tape and completely mummify him expect for one arm. He is completely mummified head to toe and then he is laid down, or he is taken somewhere. The tape they use is usually very glittery or some interesting mix of colors. Eventually, after the performance goes on for awhile, they cut him out of it and these mummification skins are also exhibited [in the P.P.O.W. show running concurrently]. It has many meanings: rebirth and there is also the fetish aspect, which you can’t ignore.

OY: We also have a London leg of the show. Artist John Walter is doing  a funny psychedelic video.

EC: And we can’t talk about highlights and not talk about John Waters! That is my favorite piece.

Poster art by Aldo Hernandez

The giant Claes Oldenburg-esque bottle of…

EC: Poppers.

OY: It is a symbol for the whole thing actually.

Can you talk a little about the performance schedule?

OY: There will be an after-party called No Pants No Problem by Jessica Whitbread, who is also in the show. She does these parties around the world, basically as the name suggests: No pants…

EC: And no problem. It is basically an underwear dance party.

OY: It started as a metaphor for getting over prejudice, your worries. You are free. You mingle. You meet people.

EC: Jessica is an HIV-positive queer woman and an AIDS activist. She started doing these parties in part because she felt alienated from nightlife and didn’t know how to navigate the different clubs.

OY: It is usually a man’s world.

EC: So she started to do these parties to break down barriers around sexuality and gender. There are kissing competitions and party games to make people….

OY: Relax.

EC: And to be vulnerable.

OY: To think: I am not the only one.

EC: That will be right after the opening on September 18 at 10:30 p.m. On October 8 is Linda Simpson's Drag Explosion. I like to explain it as your drag mother showing her vacation photos. She projects slides of photos taken from backstage at the Pyramid from the 1990’s to now. It goes from backstage at the Pyramid club to performances to ACT UP protests. Everything we are talking about in the show in the frame of drag. And she narrates it.

OY: Kia LaBeija will be one of the performers. Fredrick Weston will be doing a collage around the bar at Leftfield on the Lower East Side.

When I think about contemporary nightlife, I am thinking about performance and also blowing-off steam, but it is hard to imagine physical spaces today that feel actively political. Where do you think interesting political expression is taking place today?

EC: That is the question. I think Jessica’s parties are that. I think the Drag Ball scene is still doing interesting stuff.

OY: But you don’t see it when you go out.

Why is that? 

EC: I think because of Grindr and Tinder and all of the people online.

I think the landscape has changed because of the apps and, in the city at least, gentrification.

OY: Maybe it is happening online? They group-up and then they gather.

Party Out of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980, September 18-October 10. Gallery Hours: Wed.-Sun. 1 to 7 p.m., or by appointment at La MaMa Galleria, at 47 Great Jones St.

Follow M. Sharkey on Instagram @msharkeyfoto

Tags: ART & BOOKS, M. SHARKEY

Implicit Bias-- Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self

September 18 - December 5, 2015

Opening Reception & Meet the Artist: Friday, September 18, 7-9pm
Curator & Artists' Talk Saturday, October 17 at 3:30pm

Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery in proud partnership with all six Busboys and Poets locations will unveil IMPLICIT BIAS - Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self. Curated by Shanti Norris and Carol Dyson, the exhibition features over 45 artists from the entire east coast region including Holly Bass, Leslie Berns, Alex Braden, Tim Davis, Nehemiah Dixon, III, Justyne Fischer, Shaunt'e Gates, David Ibata, Rose Jaffe, Jeffery Kent, William Larkins fromlorton Art Program, Tim Okamura, Manuel Palacio, Herberth Romero, Gwenn Seemel, Ann Stoddard, Eric Telfort, Raphael Warshaw, Omolara Williams McCallister, and Helen Zughaib.

Artists exhibiting at Busboys and Poets include: Salama Arden, Cedric Baker, Leslie Berns, Gina Bowersmith, Summer Brown, Travis Childers, Hebron Chism, larissa Danielle, Nehemiah Dixon, III, Duly Noted Painters, Phoebe Farris PH.D, Adrienne Gaither, Aziza Gibson Hunter, Winston Harris, Courtnee Hawkins, David Ibata, Rose Jaffe, Jeffery Kent, Aselin Lands, Pamela Lawton, Marla McLean, Gringoh, Manuel Palacio, Darien Reece, Herbert Romero, Melina Sapiano, Gwenn Seemel, Shani Shih, Elka Stevens, Eric Telfort, Kim Thorpe, Raphael Warshaw, Will Watson, Jennifer Weigel, Curtis Woody,  and Helen Zughaib..

IMPLICIT BIAS: A subtle attitude or belief that often lies beneath our conscious awareness. This underlying behavior can subliminally cause stereotypical and sometimes unjust associations to form when relating with people of a different cultural background. IMPLICIT BIAS may also cause an unconsciously prejudice decision-making process towards policy and other institutional methodology.

"Maybe, we now realize the way racial bias can infect us, even when we don't realize it. So we are guarding against, not just racial slurs, but we are also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview, but not Jamal." - President Barack Obama's Charleston eulogy at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney

We are living in important and dangerous times, where racial bias has stepped into a place that can no longer be ignored. IMPLICIT BIAS - Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self is an exhibition strives to reflect these serious matters with honesty, integrity, and an urgency these times deserve. The exhibition will not solely depict an introspective view of Bias, but extends to more prevalent matters, such as injustice in all its forms: police, judicial, education, voting rights, and urban planning for example.

IMPLICIT BIAS - Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self will be on view from September 18 - December 5, 2015, with the Opening Reception on Friday, September 18th, 7-9pm.

And mark your calendars for the following special events:

Media Rise Festival 2015: Problematic Perspectives Workshop: Hosted by Media Rise, and featuring Smith Center Co-Founder & Executive Director and co-curator of IMPLICIT BIAS - Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self, Shanti Norris, join us at 12pm on Thursday, October 1st for Problematic Perceptions, a workshop in which participants discuss how media shapes their perceptions about people of color.

Implicit Bias Curator & Artists' Talk: Join us on at 3:30pm on Saturday, October 17th for the IMPLICIT BIAS Curator & Artists' Talk, hosted by Sheldon Scott, for a rare opportunity to hear the featured artists speak about this important exhibition.

"Code Switching" with Kelly King: As a part of IMPLICIT BIAS - Seeing the Other: Seeing Our Self, join us at 6:30pm on Thursday, October 22nd for the "Code Switching", a moving dialogues workshop with Contradiction Dance and Kelly King.

"Sightless Party" Hosted by Holly Bass and Micah John: Friday, November 13th, 7-9pm

 

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Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Friday, 11am-5pm, Saturday, 11am-3pm, and by appointment.
Please note: The gallery will be CLOSED on the following Saturdays, September 26 and October 24. The gallery will also be CLOSED Thursday, November 27 through Saturday, November 29 for Thanksgiving.

Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery is located at 1632 U Street, in Northwest DC
Learn more about the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery

'Homeland is racist': artists sneak subversive graffiti on to TV show

Three graffiti artists hired to add authenticity to refugee camp scenes in this week’s episode of Homeland have said they instead used their artwork to accuse the TV programme of racism.

 The graffiti here says: ‘Homeland is racist.’ Photograph: Courtesy of the artists

In the second episode of the fifth season, which aired in the US and Australia earlier this week, and will be shown in the UK on Sunday, lead character Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, can be seen striding past a wall daubed with Arabic script reading: “Homeland is racist.”

Other slogans painted on the walls of the fictional Syrian refugee camp included “Homeland is a joke, and it didn’t make us laugh” and “#blacklivesmatter”, the artists – Heba Amin, Caram Kapp and Stone – said in a statement published online. 

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 The graffiti on the left says: ‘Freedom … now in 3D’. The one on the right says: ‘Homeland is watermelon’ (which is slang for not to be taken seriously). Photograph: Courtesy of the artists

The artists said they had been contacted in June by a fellow street artist who had been approached by a production company looking for people to add authenticity to the set – intended to portray a refugee camp on the Syrian-Lebanese border, but filmed on the outskirts of Berlin.

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“Given the series’ reputation,” they wrote, “we were not easily convinced, until we considered what a moment of intervention could relay about our own and many others’ political discontent with the series. It was our moment to make our point by subverting the message using the show itself.”

In an early meeting with the production team, they were, the statement claims, handed images of “pro-Assad graffiti – apparently natural in a Syrian refugee camp”.

The trio decided instead to use the opportunity to air their criticisms of the show, adding graffiti stating: “Homeland is NOT a series”, “The situation is not to be trusted” and “This show does not represent the views of the artists.”

The Arabic script was not checked by producers, they claimed. “The content of what was written on the walls … was of no concern. In their eyes, Arabic script is merely a supplementary visual that completes the horror-fantasy of the Middle East, a poster image dehumanising an entire region to human-less figures in black burkas and moreover, this season, to refugees.”

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 The message on the left says: ‘Homeland is not a series’. The one on the right says: ‘The situation is not to be trusted’ and ‘This show does not represent the views of the artists’. Photograph: Courtesy of the artists

Amin told the Guardian: “We think the show perpetuates dangerous stereotypes by diminishing an entire region into a farce through the gross misrepresentations that feed into a narrative of political propaganda.

“It is clear they don’t know the region they are attempting to represent. And yet, we suffer the consequences of such shallow and misguided representation.”

Homeland has frequently run into controversy during its five seasons, particularly over its depiction of the Muslim world and its portrayal of an apparently cosy relationship between Al-Qaida and Hezbollah.

After season four depicted Islamabad as a “hellhole”, a Pakistan embassy spokesperson, Nadeem Hotian, said: “Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US … is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US but also to the people of the US.”

 Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims?

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor 

 

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Showtime has not yet responded to the artists’ claims. The network president, David Nevins, said earlier this year, ahead of the filming of season five, that Homeland would not necessarily continue with Islamist protagonists: “We’re not necessarily going to stay now and forever [focusing on] US relations in the Muslim world … We’re exploring a few different possibilities and may change it up a little bit.”

Nevins added of the show’s writers: “They never shied away from anything difficult. I want them to go right into the teeth of it again.”