Anthony Hudson

(Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde)

CLOWN DOWN 2: CLOWN OUT OF WATER (SNEAK PEEK) + INDIGENOUS RESIDENCY SERIES

Premiering in 2022, Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water finds Portland's premier drag clown, Carla Rossi, trapped on a rock in the ocean while the water level rises due to melting ice caps. Alone with a seagull afflicted with IBS, Carla encounters possum pirates, shark TERFs, and the world's last surviving polar bear in this multimedia drag farce that utilizes puppetry, interactive video, and sculpture by David Eckard, and is all about climate disaster and the terror of living on an increasingly distressed planet. Clown Down 2 is being developed by Hudson as a part of the Indigenous Residency Series (IRS).

IRS (Indigenous Residency Series) is a multi-year program with three artists—Anthony Hudson, Arias Hoyle and Steven Paul Judd—working with host organizations PICA, Bunnell Street Arts Center and NM Bodecker Foundation, respectively. During the TBA Festival each artist will share a brief video of their work-in-progress, along with a Zoom discussion between the artists, available to view on PICA’s online platform.

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Knowledge of Wounds

(Turtle Island, Australia)

S/kin

Knowledge of Wounds unfolds as a series of readings, meetings, discussions, and performances, and is not limited to any one type of knowledge or mode of expression. It is a ceremony, a gathering space, a fire, a calling to vibrate in good relations across Indigenous time and space, an evolving vessel for the exchange and cultivation of Indigiqueer knowledge, art, action, and medicine. At the heart of our curatorial vision is the conviction that to gather as queer, trans, and two-spirit Indigenous kin, in good relations, means centering our own forms of knowledge production, our own vibrations and beings-with. Thus, we refuse the limitations imposed on our bodies by colonialism, normative taxonomies, and epistemologies, and instead dwell in (and as) liminal thinkers and practitioners.

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Sara Siestreem / Timothy White Eagle

(Hanis Coos, Seattle)

Fall 2021 Creative Exchange Lab: Meet the Artists

PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab (CXL) is a residency program that provides artists with time, space, and funding to develop projects, ideas, and relationships. With no expectations of a “finished product,” CXL is an open opportunity for artists to immerse themselves in their practices, and to learn from and connect with one another. True to its name, CXL lends itself to generating deep and meaningful bonds within each Lab cohort, often leading to future collaborations and partnerships. Join us for our CXL Meet the Artists event to learn more about each of these artists and their current projects, processes, and practices! Full list of Fall 2021 Creative Exchange Lab Artists Crystal Cortez (Portland, OR), mario lemafa (Seattle, WA), Sara Siestreem (Portland, OR), Maya Vivas (Portland, OR), and Timothy White Eagle (Seattle, WA).

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Garrick Imatani and Travis Stewart

(Portland, OR / Grand Ronde, OR) 

The Drift

The Drift is a visual archive of the future, where the politics and excuses for failed Indigenous repatriation are bypassed through an inexplicable force that returns all that is lost and stolen. Echoing the circular path from extraction to healing, The Drift presents the culmination of a multi-year project undertaken by Garrick Imatani with Travis Stewart and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Combining virtual reality, a publication and screening, digital fabrication, and photography, this installation takes form as a map, countdown, and inner eye to a scene within and beyond human control.

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Emily Johnson / Catalyst, Raven Chacon, Drew Michael, Holly Mititquq Nordlum

(Mannahatta, Lenapehoking / Land with ties to the Tiwa, Tewa, Keresan, Tanoan, Anasazi, Diné, Apache and Genízaro / Lands of the Multnomah, Wasco, Kathlamet, Cowlitz, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla / Dena'ina Land)

INVITATION TO BEING A FUTURE BEING

Celebrated for a distinguished body of dance works, Emily Johnson unites audiences in a shared experience of movement, place, history, collective action, and the continuance of Indigenous cultural practices and perspectives. As part of a creative residency at PICA, Johnson gathers an extraordinary group of collaborating artists to create an in-process activation and installation as part of her newest work in development, Being Future Being.

Johnson, along with composer Raven Chacon, visual and tattoo artist Holly Mititquq Nordlum, and artist and mask maker Drew Michael, delves into the power of creation to build a visual, aural, and ancestral landscape of Indigenous power. By (re)building new visions of the forces that brought this world into being, Being Future Being brings forth new futures with the potential to reshape the way we relate to ourselves, and to the human and more-than-human cohabitants of our world.

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Artist Conversation: Emily Johnson, Raven Chacon, Drew Michael, and Holly Mititquq Nordlum.

Emily Johnson and collaborators on her TBA project Being Future Being—including Raven Chacon, Drew Michael, and Holly Mititquq Nordlum—will share insights into their creative and collaborative processes in making a work of performance, installation, sound, and ancestral landscapes that propose new futures and relationalities with each other and our world.

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