ou
the h e o u d se i s may 24 t , 20
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issuu.com/outsidethehouse
a letter from the curators
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May 12, 2017 Dear Participants of Outside the House, The idea for this one-night, multimedia exhibition was conceived when we found out Maya’s parents were going to be out of town, forgoing a spare house to mischievous, tiny hands. We set ourselves on concocting an event where people could experiment, learn, play, and visit. Though still more than two weeks out, we hope Outside the House will culminate in just that, transforming from a space that seems unusual for art displays to one is obvious. Our submission drive invited people to explore the space surrounding a home. Pieces featured in this exhibition delve into the thin space directly outside of a house that aim to reconcile domesticity and wilderness. Participants were asked to process what they remember about being outside of a home and about boundaries. We included a second prompt under the umbrella of the first one, in hopes of generating more installation and performance content. We asked for work that crawls, falls, swings, sways, or climbs; movements that are meant to trigger a diverse range of individual haptic memories and interpretations of leaving, coming to, or existing outside of a home. With the active participation from 40 other artists who hail from four different continents, a handful of US states, as well as right around the corner, we anxiously await May 24th. We would like to thank all of the people who have contributed and of course, Maya’s parents, for unknowingly granting us this laboratory play-place. With swollen hearts and a load of anticipation,
Riley Cavanaugh and Maya Simkin P.S. Seriously, please, don’t tell my parents.
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table of contents letter from the curators 2, 3 kate anderson 6 brenna penson 7 naoko wowsugi 8, 9 tassia quirino 10 kara maxwell 11 henry voellmecke 12, 13 melissa fandos 14 klaus pinter 15 ruby maude-riox, alexandre michael, simon desjardins 16, 17 shanti flagg, morgan spaner 18 carolyn schneider 19 amjad kawish farajie 20 kennedy star warfield 21 rachel brown 22 grace makuch 23 shira stonehill 24 maya ru 25 lily fulop 26 austin potrue 27
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melanie vazquez 28, 29 emma bartley 30, 31 fintan rowan mason 32 cardinal harbor 33 lazzlo jenkins, sara law 34, 35 eva salazar 36 delia pelli 37 madeline wellen 38 lee gusman 39 jessie georges 40 alex lukawski 41 nicolas vamvouklis 42, 43 bert crabbĂŠ, 44, 45 alex patel 46 jennifer fagan 47 julia ainbinder 48 hayley jordanna 49 maya simkin, riley cavanaugh 50, 51 acknowledgements 52
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kate anderson Only I Can Fit
embroidery thread and terrain Kate’s work incorporates material investigations and process-based mark-making to evaluate how time is spent by documenting repeated actions. She’s interested in acting on objects solely for the purpose of translating these recurring gestures to form a seemingly arbitrary routine, bringing attention to time as a basis for expression. Kate is also growing out her bangs so she can one day effectively braid her hair in a circle. Her interests include patterns, handwriting exercises, crocheting, and bookmaking. Thinking about Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and a something my roommate often says, “Don’t apologize for taking up space”, Only I Can Fit is a literal translation of one’s room, discussing the necessity for a personal space of reflection and growth, as well as its inevitable disruption. Only I Can Fit is an installation sewn into a patch of grass in bright orange thread measuring 74” long by 25” wide. These measurements are specific to the size of my body, and are a space in which I can comfortably lay with only a couple inches on each side for me to move. This work references the individual not only its distinct size, but also in the intimate, careful process of the hand stitching required for the work’s fabrication. Only visible upon stepping inside its parameters, this stitched enclosure positions the viewer as the intruder, and functions as a reminder of the discomfort and setbacks one encounters when their own boundaries, be it physical or existential, are invaded.
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Wall
sculpture performance piece Using rope, strips of fabric, metal stakes, one of the trees in the backyard area, and several hours of labor, Brenna will explore process based actions that deal with repetition and craft. Weaving structures or barriers out of rope and fabric is the basis from most of her sculptures, because it exhibits the process and repetition of weaving. Brenna's sculpture also incorporates time-based performance art, which includes her setting up the makeshift loom and then weaving until it is complete. Brenna will attach lengths of rope from a low hanging tree branch to stakes in the ground next to the trees to create a type of grid or loom from the tree. The performance aspect of her piece will be weaving lengths of fabric strips from the ground to the tree branch to create a barrier. The title of the piece Wall ties in with the concept of boundaries and the space outside of a created boundary. Also, with the flexibility of the materials used to create this piece plays with the idea of how rigid boundaries really are and why we create them to feel safe.
brenna penson 7
naoko wowsugi Grass Pillows
video, 37 minutes Naoko has never had the right to vote in any country. Although shewas born and raised in Japan, I am legally a citizen of South Korea—a country where she have never lived but whose citizenship she carries as a result of a complicated political history between the two countries. This cultural confusion in Naoko’s upbringing has resulted in a sensation of ever-growing alienation, which leads her to explore conditions of identity and belonging. Through a cross-disciplinary practice in performance, video, photography, and community participation, she creates playful interactions which presume a shared human desire for kindness and connections. Naoko’s interest in community dynamics stems from her own sense of selfhood and complex relationship with cultural identity and nationality. For bureaucratic reasons, non-Japanese nationals residing in Japan must have addresses in their native country. When Naoko discovered her Korean address, she was surprised by the existence of an arbitrary coordinate as her “real home”—a place she’s never been. She researched the address with Google Maps and found nothing but an empty field of grass. Naoko was fascinated by this satellite image; her home in the middle of nowhere felt perfect. As an homage to her 'real home,' Naoko decided to make the video Grass Pillows. She went to the Virginia countryside and set up a bed where she slept until sunrise. With this non-place as a newfound site of sanctuary, Naoko unearthed the possibility for unmediated belonging at the crux of cultural, communal, and political conditions. In the video, the sky gradually emerges from the darkness of night, its brightness revealing an image of her sleeping under layers and layers of blankets.
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tassia quirino Tassia is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Berlin. It’s been less than one year since Tassia started her career as a visual artist and she is now taking part in collective exhibitions.
MUTATION
two videos played simultaneously, 1:25 minutes Mutation is composed of two videos: a forest seen through a flutex window glass and sunlight reflected from the surface of an underexposed lake. A contemplative exercise by capturing the infinite flow of time that progressively transforms these natural landscapes.
TONAL CADENCE
Video Installation. One channel, color, sound, 10’, loop. TONAL CADENCE explores the ability of light to shape spaces by visual perception. The first video frame is completely white, image is then overexposed. Iris diaphragm is closed by one f-stop every 5 seconds and this process continues until total darkness is reached. Between total black and white the light beam is revealed and transformed in each aperture changing. Light is perceived as a body that inhabits space, a tangible piece with form and volume.
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Get Outside More oil paint on TV
A large portion of Kara’s work has been dedicated to exploring how the creative process can help her work through unresolved traumas. Get Outside More addresses the notion that problematic media first sweeps into our comfort spaces, our homes, and then we often carry this information around with us. Some of us are constantly haunted by the unrealistic standards that we are exposed to from various media outlets, especially our televisions. To illustrate this, Kara will oil paint an image of a blurred woman screaming and covered in static onto a TV. She is choosing to paint the TV rather than project an image onto it, because the image will feel more unnatural and tactile. Furthermore, the TV will be displayed outside, emphasizing the idea that the images that we see can haunt us, follow us outside, and continue to remain relevant even though the TV is not plugged in.
kara maxwell
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henry voellmecke my flag
scanned screenprint on polyester, flagpole (image on following page is a test print on paper) Henry explores formalism through site-specific installation and printmaking using minimal forms of line, shape and pattern. With a limited palette inspired by the process colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black, this work presents formal interactions to evoke a phenomenological aesthetic experience. The various combinations of two-color overlays and halftoning allow his installations to provide viewers with individual experiences based on their vantage point. Because this exhibition takes place on the exterior of a domestic space, Henry is interested in using the site-specificity of a common trope of the house – a flag. Although his work usually remains conceptually driven by a phenomenological experience, Henry is interested in working with an object that can be socially and politically charged, as well. The formal attributes of the printed fabric will consist of magenta and yellow halftone lines interacting to elicit orange. Due to the vibrations of halftone lines overlapping, the visual movement of the flag as well as its physical movement from the wind will evoke a unique experience with the viewer as bystander while the viewed object becomes an active participant. The flag has been used by artists like Jasper Johns to engage with its iconic symbolism. The U.S. is a country dead-set on patriotism (dare I say jingoism?) where the star-spangled banner can be seen flying amongst nearly every household in suburbia. Henry sees the flag as a tool for propaganda to perpetuate a narrative of nationalism that cannot be questioned without being seen as a form of treason, i.e. Colin Kaepernick. By creating a flag based on phenomenology and using it as a replacement for the U.S. flag, Henry plans to call into question and subvert the often dangerous idea of nationalism.
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melissa fandos I Really Like Clouds video, 2:28 minutes
Melissa Fandos is moving to Chicago in a few days, but isn’t here right now. When she grows up, she’d like to be a cinematographer or music video director. She loves clouds and flowers and chocolate chip cookies and is really excited about young people THINKING AND CREATING on social media. "I Really Like Clouds" is first and foremost a visual representation of how much Melissa loves clouds. The film is also a reflection on her own feelings and perceptions of home as she tries to understand how, when, where, why, and with whom she feel at home. Melissa used footage of the people and places (Grinnell, IA; St. Louis, MO; and Chicago; IL) that influence and complicate her ideas of being inside and outside of home. The piece sways and swings with both its visuals and audio.
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Untitled
paper sculpture that the audience can take Klaus is an Austrian artist who tries to transform drawing into everyday objects through interactive engagement from the audience This piece turns paper with drawings into graphic rollable sculptures to be used for loudspeakers on earphones. Klaus questions what the nature of an object is, pinning it to human touch and labor. By doing this, he has created a work that outsources construction to the audience.
klaus pinter 15
ruby-maude rioux, alexandre michael, simon desjardins Just Next Door
Projection Mapping Piece Based in Canada, Ruby is a numeric artist, who uses new technologies to explore alternative storytelling methods and therefore create intimate yet collaborative experiences. Through interactive art installations, she revisits our relationship with computers to create a seamless, natural and emotional connection with people. Alexandre Michael likes to imagine and create new ways to tell stories. Interactive installation, film, graphic design, video game : he explores different mediums and understand their intricacies, develops ideas without feeling restricted. Simon Desjardins is an interactive music and sound composer whose vocation lies in atmospheric, immersive and interactive sound experience in real life environment. With Just Next Door, their intent is to recreate, in an abstract form, the classic secret scenes happening in most family houses. As childhood homes we can only revisit from the street, our attachment remains from the small marks, the durable proofs that we once lived there. Those quirky, intimate, funny moments are the ones we cherish, after all. They will use projection mapping to augment some elements of the house and yard in order to tell the story of the said object.
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shanti flagg, morgan spaner Build It Urself,
dimensions and materials will vary Shanti Flagg is an Indian lesbian artist. Morgan Spaner is a Jewish lesbian artist. They make art about how love is real. Build It Urself is an interactive art installation by Shanti Flagg and Morgan Spaner that asks the participant to create an unknown sculpture from vague instructions and found materials. The construction of this structure reflects the ways lesbians are asked to create and recreate lives and communities from societal expectations and cues that are ever changing. materials: Turkey baster, 50 wallet size photos (some attached to popsicle sticks), hammer, 3 rolls of tape, 4 camping stakes, 2 pairs of scissors,15 velcro zip ties, pink and blue embroidery square, lighter, carabiner, packer, scrap fabric, sewing kit, suspenders, tie, poppers, How to Satisfy a Woman EVERY TIME, garden hand shovel, play doh, lace, glitter glue, tea candles
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this poem is dead now
poem written in chalk and performance with water Carolyn will write an old poem of hers with chalk on the driveway at the beginning of the exhibition, and wash it away with a hose at the end, effectively "killing" it as it drips down the slope of the driveway, mimicking a central image in the poem. Carolyn might simultaneously read a new poem that she writes during the exhibition. The poem on the driveway is the first Carolyn wrote as a “serious” poet, so it’s now being washed away. The poem plays out the tension between old homes and new homes, imagines how one might carry or invite the old into the new, what time might do to collapse or reify the borders between homes. The driveway becomes as a central space in the poem, signifying entryway to and exit from the home. Over time, Carolyn’s relationship to this early poem in her career has shifted; her project and ability as a poet have grown in many different directions that can be contained by this piece. She invites the audience to lay this poem to rest.
carolyn schneider 19
amjad kawish farajie Amjad is an Iraqi artist now based in the Netherlands, where he has been active in promoting Iraqi art. He writes about his piece: “I miss my home...sitting behind that little screen looking at it and remembering..remembering my childhood, my toys, my memories... floating around its corners... talking to that spirit reside in it and still dwell inside me. Imagine that you are searching for your memories but in... Google earth!!! Although the small area of my house but I start to move around between its large corners... which is larger than the world, our alleys, our streets, our narrow roads knocking at the doors looking for, searching those beautiful memories which engraved in my mind. Standing next the walls.. touching them, listening to the voices in my head: My mother’s wailing, the crying of my sad father... looking for my infancy... my infancy that tarnished and damaged buy wars; searching the dream of the boy over there.�
Missing My Home
captioned video, 5:08 minutes
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HOLE,
sculpture Kennedy’s style of art was born from her personal struggles with depression and other mental health disorders. Dealing with these mental health disorders, she have used art as a template to journal my experiences and feelings about mental health. Kennedy focuses on exploring the emotions that society tries to stray away from and brush under the rug. She takes these unwanted emotions that are typically not discussed or visible and make them the focal points of her work. Whether the art resonates with a person or makes them uncomfortable, she wants the observer to acknowledge their own feelings about the work. This sculpture is about not feeling whole and having to do what you can you keep yourself together to appear whole. This ties into the category is how much of your home do you carry outside. Sometimes your home isn't the comfortable safe place you need it to be and you have to carry the weight and effect of that when you leave, and despite what you're going through you have to pull yourself together as best as possible.
kennedy star warfield
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rachel brown this is my backyard video, 1:47 minutes
Rachel Brown is a joke. They do not make art but they try. Sort of. Rachel grew up in Chicago with a very nice backyard full of plants and sometimes weeds but has since moved to New York City to study film and television. Everything they have created thus far has just been a homework assignment. They are a solid B student. this is my backyard is a short film with a voiceover of Rachel describing their new backyard, which is just cement with weeds growing through the cracks and a garage that is locked up. They’re moving soon.
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Nothing To See Here, Folks (Panels 1-5) Acrylic on Masonite
Grace Makuch is a printmaker and illustrator in Chicago who sometimes paints when she feels like punishing herself. This is one of those times. Her work often reflects themes of comedy, sadness, and self-deprecation in traditionally 2-D forms. These paintings are a set of 5 Masonite panels that are a site-specific invitation for viewers to enter a space they shouldn't enter. After all, this is Maya's childhood home, and we don't want to be sneaky and rude, do we?!? In this case, yes. We want to revert back to exploring our childhood friend's backyard. We want to snoop, creep, sneak and peep. Only to find out that truly.... There's Nothing To See Here, Folks.
grace makuch 23
shira stonehill All The Rooms I've Ever Lived In
Acrylic, Oil and Ink on Wood and Mirror This work explores the connections between self and space, and explores the intimate and emotional relationship Shira has with the places she have lived in throughout her life. She uses bright, vivid colors to signify the chaos and energy of different spaces, and chose to use a frame and mirror to signify the bonds and binds Shira feels to both the places she’s called home and places she has been uncomfortable in. The results of experiencing different environments creates the narrative of who we are, and by never being able to experience her painting without literally seeing herself in the work, she has created a visual of how it feels to be so attached to the journey that has led to where she is now. When you look at yourself through the piece, you see the boundaries of the rooms. Shira uses black rope or tape to create a floor map of the rooms as well, on whatever the floor below is. Her piece asks the viewer to consider what boundaries mean, how we are bound to our spaces, and what it means to be in a room and outside of a room.
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The Platform
22x24 Digital Prints Maya wishes to convey personal images of nostalgia coupled with social awareness. Centered on bodies of women of color, she attempts to capture women in a deeply emotional state at a moment in time. Her art often attempts to create a space for dynamic women who demand to be seen and ties itself closely with the contemporary social and political climate of today. Maya’s work invites viewers to call awareness and find a point of relation. Maya wishes to show work that showcases problems of recycling and how paper is used in our outside world. She wants to display works in way to remind viewers of advertisements or wheat pasted signs around the city. The prints will be different images and text pertaining to the earth and the artificial/digital rendering of it.
maya ru 25
lily fulop Flesh Without Blood
Animated video, 1 minute, song by Grimes Lily is a visual and textile designer obsessed with patterns and yarn. Her work stems from her desire to communicate this excitement with others. During the time Lily was creating this animation, a relationship was ending for her, and she was attempting to come to terms with herself, loss, and her body. This piece is about boundaries and space- her bed and the things that happened there, the discomfort that arises from physicality, the desire to make oneself smaller. The Grimes song Lily chose as accompaniment describes losing a fight, a partner, and eventually moving on. Lily was able to find comfort because her body - not her partner’s - is her home.
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“Paradise, purple clou d Acetone fum es, sing hym n and swoo Sweet, swe n et symphon y of purple hearts�
Paradise
es
ds through headphon
listening to soun Poem to be read while
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austin potrue
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melanie vazquez Mema’s Porch
(top right)
Acrylic on Canvas
Abuelita’s Kitchen Acrylic on Canvas
(bottom right)
Melanie is an experimental painter currently working on portraying her personal experiences within her culture to relate to the viewers. As a first generation Mexican-American in the United States of America, it is easy to forget her roots. Melanie has found this to be a common theme within young minority adults. Her current goal is to remind the audience, not only of Mexican culture, but also of various cultures and religions that seem to be getting lost in the current disarray of politics in the United States. Both of Melanie’s paintings are reminiscent of her childhood as she remembers it. Mema’s Porch represents her childhood as it was at one point in the United States. Abuelita’s Kitchen represents Melanie’s childhood as it was at one point in Mexico. She believes these pieces answer the question of how much do we carry outside of our homes. It is not what we carry with us materialistically, but how we carry it as a memory.
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emma bartley Window Well poem This poem is part of Emma’s collection called “Reconstruction.” To recall and then write an intimate space is an inevitable dismantling of its physical reality. But happening simultaneously is an imaginative rebuilding. Imaginative rebuilding helps Emma more clearly communicate how she currently perceives relationships between her formative experiences and the space in which they occurred. Indeed, although the literal spaces Emma recalls are from childhood, the materials with which she re-builds are made of today’s problems, fears, and fantasies. Because these will always shift, the house Emma can recall is perpetually in the midst of construction. Upon entering what stands in “Reconstruction” you will encounter missing ceilings, animal cages, and ocean water pooling on the floor--but it is within these illogical, out of place, and fleeting dimensions that she can best tell her stories to you now.
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fintan rowan mason gloryglory
video, 3 minutes Fintan is a visual artist with a vigorous desire to queer oil pipeline resistance. The white male exposed--in a crumbling USA--discovers the best choice for [him] is to lather the body in the substance that provides [him] with enormous comfort and offers [him] a route to fall into a safe space, free of battles over feminism, sexuality and all that race and immigration nonsense. Let the crude oil drizzle down [his] gleaming white abs and soften his fall.
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Cardinal Harbor
a six piece band (including a saxophone!) performing a set lasting as long as we want Cardinal Harbor, a midwest progressive rock group composed of six members, got together in a dormitory stairwell and explore place in their music. They actively work to be in constant collaboration with other Chicagoland musicians through a side project in their living room. Their last album, Euclid, wonders what can be done outside the house that can’t be done inside. Bonfires, grilling, blossoms of plants and friendship are bottled up into hymnal melodies and odd meter, echoing overgrown suburban patios and wax antiquities.
cardinal harbor
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lazzlo jenkins, sara law Character Research, Object Research, Composition Research three 2 minutes videos
Lazzlo sees everything as an equation and an opportunity for research. Most questions have answers and everything can be questioned. His practice involves looking in unexpected places to find what we may not even have known to exist. She is currently exploring what objects mean and what we could do with them if they had no meaning at all. Lazzlo’s piece is a set of three experimental short films. The films are research and experimentation. By using objects, without their meaning, we can create interesting alternative narratives for them. These pieces crawl, fall, swing, and sway.
Character Research 34
Object Research
Composition Research 35
eva salazar Ya te chingaste, cabron (you got fucked motherfucker) artist’s spit and toothpaste
I created this piece by repeatedly brushing my teeth and spitting out the contents to use as my medium. Each sign required about 10 full brushing cycles to complete. This process became painful and sickening with the repetition. “Ya te chingaste cabron” is a study on the contemporary and on Mexican Youth. The piece presents a variety of comon mexican frazes that are difficul for people from other countries to understand (this is a difficulty that exists in adition to the language barrier it may present in countries like the US). It is a piece about alienation and excludion. The intimacy and obsessive nature of the piece speak as my own interpretation of Mexico as my home and as my blood. When you look at this piece, when you read these signs, are you home?
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delia pelli Cocoon,
Performance using wool fiber and body Delia’s work deals primarily with change, transition, and the natural environment. She likes to look at the relationship between humans and the natural, be that comparison or a direct relationship. Cocoon looks at metamorphosis, and the way that that phenomenon is experienced. Often times we feel the need to physically transform ourselves when we undergo a mental shift, be that getting a drastic haircut after a bad breakup, or a tattoo to mark a significant moment in our lives. Cocoon was originally conceived as a way for Delia to experience this transformation herself by mimicking the way it occurs in nature. For many insects a cocoon marks the shift between adolescence and adulthood, the acceptance of maturity. She wouldn't consider herself an adult and certainly not mature, but this year has been one of incredible personal change and growth for her, particularly as an artist, and she wants to experience this form of catharsis. For this piece, Delia will be cocooning herself in a natural wool fiber, by wrapping the fiber around herself until she’s completely covered. It's a simple concept, however the end result is very eerie and alien-like. This piece responds explores reconciling wilderness and domesticity by taking on the role of an animal and using it as a form of change within herself.
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madeline wellen
1, 2, 3‌
wood and jump rope with audio, Madeline investigates how mediums can work with one another to explore her body's relationship to the space, using her position as a voyeur to make the nuance and contra be seen. 1, 2, 3‌ is a wooden frame with jump ropes hung through the structure at different levels of taut-ness with an audio of jump ropes hitting gravel, while the structure is staged in the grass. The hard hits of the jump rope on the gravel juxtapose nicely with a frame on a soft surface. The ropes sway with the wind and the piece plays with the meaning of a jump rope when it doesn't have two hands holding the opposing sides.
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Site/tent
acrylic, water, dirt, spit, cum, sweat, blood, wood, and fabric Lee’s work focuses on a desire to understand and emulate transcendent moments through intimate experiences. It is heavily rooted in a desire to fathom the ways in which bodies coalesce to create poistcoital bliss. He seeks to create spaces where the viewer is encouraged to interact and activate an abstraction of himself. Through his work, Lee hopes to find answers to my own misunderstanding of intimacy whilst unearthing the ephemeral nature of it. Lee works primarily with materials that he views as extension of the body such as sheets, fluids, water and light. Site/tent is inspired by this beautiful sermon Lee heard about the body and how it is a site of both great pain and beauty. He thought it would be interesting to do it as a tent for Outside the House. Viewers are invited to sit in the water, play with the shadows, and get lost in the glimmering, flickering, dancing lights. This piece explores the feelings of comfort one felt as a child when making a “fort.” Life can be traumatic, hard and fucking weird, and sometimes adults need to go back to that feeling. The sheets are representative of Lee’s body and cover the viewer symbolizing the desire to heal himself and others around him (audio maybe included).
lee gusman 39
jessie georges Future Past
Site-specific installation involving two wooden stakes, wire, and polyethylene (recreated by the curators)
Jessie is a Belgian artist and teacher. In a world that is changing very fast, the idea of things is constantly morphing. That change of mental images and traditions is a starting point for Jessie’s work. Materials and techniques are chosen because of how they behave in terms of having a memory, a certain movement, an effect on an image. The home-objects are symbols of the inside, the personal, intimacy and relations. Future Past is a reminder of a time when washed sheets were drying in the wind. It reminds Jessie of her childhood, playing and finding herself in a new world that shaped the movement of the wind. By using a thin plastic sheet, viewers are able to see the landscape through it, making the surroundings vague, unsharp, partially faded. It brings a shape and a sound to the wind, that flies by like time does.
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Have A Nice Day mixed media
Alex is a graphic designer and artist living in Chicago. Inspired by the recent, and very effective, ban on plastic bags in Chicago, Alex’s piece will play tribute to the design and iconography to the classic smiley face Thank You bag. The sight of a plastic bag blowing in the wind, stuck in a tree, might one day only be a figment of memory. Alex’s piece will deconstruct all the elements of the bag: taking the the typography off the bag, creating a 3 dimensional smiley face, hanging fabric to resemble plastic, all connected and interacting together.
alexandra lukawski 41
nicolas vamvouklis
AND IT FEELS LIKE HOME II video, 2:44 minutes
Nicolas is a Greek artist currently working in Athens and Milan, practicing with installation, video, performance and curatorial projects. In November 2016, Berlin Zoo housed its poultry indoors as a precautionary measure after the first cases of H5N8 flu were confirmed in Germany. The move coincided with the usual seasonal relocation of the birds to their winter aviaries. Addressing themes of migration, domesticity and displacement, Nicolas examines the parallels between human and animal societies through the cohabitation of a flamboyance of flamingos. The video highlights the dynamics of dominance, oppression and exclusion referring to his homeland Lesvos, a popular destination for birdwatchers of migratory species as well as the major focal point in Europe's humanitarian crisis.
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bert crabbĂŠ
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A House Made by Walking video, 9:36 minutes
Bert covered his living room with packing paper. Once done he unpacked it and made a lump of the paper which he rolled to a gallery near his home in Belgium where he was exhibiting. The title of the piece is inspired by the famous work “A Line Made by Walking� by R. Long. By dragging things from his private space to a public space they almost perish and form a nearly unnoticeable trail that connects both spaces. The house is turned inside out.
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alex patel Quidditch is Life, Quidditch is Home small painting on canvas
This painting relates to the family Alex has found in quidditch, his metaphorical home.
Untitled
poetry recitation for a few minutes This piece focuses on some part of imagination and the creativity Alex’s parents bestowed upon him and how that has transformed and transferred to all of his homes. Alex is from California but came here because he thinks Chicago has a heart.
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Daddy Issues Confessional Jennifer is an artist, curator, writer, and activist living and working in Chicago. Her interdisciplinary art practice is an exploration of masculinity, loss, and identity through photography, video, and TBD performance. Daddy Issues Confessional is a traveling OUTstallation. The space is a tent where humans with daddy issues, both biological or patriarchal, can come tell their stories verbally or on paper to lighten their emotional loads. Jennifer will carry these weights as long as needed. The traditional space of a religious confessional booth has long been one of an unsafe power play and has contributed to the male power paradigm in our society. With Daddy Issues Confessional, Jennifer is creating an alternative to this, a soft meditative safe space where you are able to confess and share your daddy issues.
jennifer fagan 47
julia ainbinder Invasive Breeze three columns of photos printed on paper and attached by string Julia is a product designer based in Pittsburgh who works across many mediums to create both inviting and functional pieces. Invasive Breeze is a photo series exploring air, motion, and the changes to our appearance that come with stepping outside the house. It aims to display the inconvenience and/or beauty caused by hair on a windy day. Julia hates wind. It makes her feel insecure and frustrated when her hair is out of place. Some people love wind. It makes them look like models walking down a runway. This series exaggerates the effects of wind in an indoor setting, and makes hair that is out of place seem purposeful. The piece hangs and possibly sways throughout its exhibition, furthering its effect.
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Home/House Collage Series collage on paper As Hayley occupies more houses and visits more places, the concept of “home” becomes less permanent and more fluid. Using images of houses she’s lived in, paired with sketches of rooms she remembers from each house, Hayley explores the definition of “home” and all the emotion it carries.
hayley jordanna 49
maya simkin, riley cavanaugh
In Lieu of a Tunnel mixed media participatory installation Using materials that remind them of their childhood homes, including their actual childhood pillows, Maya and Riley will create structures that function as beds. While they have just come out of two semesters worth of long calls and FaceTimes, Maya and Riley’s connections have mostly occurred outside of the home, through telephone line vibrations and signals, or however those things work. Perhaps the telephone lines are their home. Their individual homes this past year have nonetheless been connected by what they can only understand as a string between their two cups. They are just two boys, with two cups. All are invited to lounge in their beds, get on the phone with one another (no fees, relax), and chit chat.
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Thank you so much to all of the participating artists and future guests. We are humbled by your hard work and hope provide an exceptional experience for all attendees. See you May 24! If you’re curious to see how this event turned out, check google.com/site/view/outsidethehouse after June 2017 for a large body of footage. If you want to tell us something nice or ask a question, feel free to email Maya Simkin at ms7889a@student.american.edu or Riley Cavanaugh at riley.cavanaugh7@gmail.com
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