TECHNIQUES FOR ECSTASY
Dance floors are fertile ground for unbounded self-expression, cradled in the arms of community. They are sites of embodied resistance and reclamation. They can spark an empathy kindled from the recognition of joy in another. In dancing together we simultaneously discover and create shared understandings of our humanity and reinforce the ties of community. This is especially true and essential for marginalized communities. Techniques for Ecstasy celebrates the exuberance of dancing together and the revolutionary power held in - and between - our bodies.
Presented at Public Functionary in Minneapolis, MN from May 4th, 2024 - May 25th, 2024, Techniques for Ecstasy was an immersive textile exhibition inspired by the March 2023 "Dancing with Friends" party. Eighteen multi-layered, hand stitched, embellished, textile collages depict participants of “Dancing with Friends” in their individuality and release.
DANCING WITH FRIENDS PARTY
In early 2023, I sought to expand my creative rumination on the power and potential of dance floors by inviting a broader community into my vision. On March 10th, I hosted an evening of joy, togetherness, and sweaty sweaty boogie down at Public Functionary in Minneapolis, as a party titled “Dancing with Friends.” The evening featured local (DJ Just Nine and DJ Jacques) and international DJs (Montreal-based Moonshine Collective), live video projection (by Booscapes and Line Break Media), and an installation of my textile works (incorporating fabrics by Atelier Mamako). Dancers and revelers of the evening shared and shaped the space. Collaborators Drew Arrieta and Ryan Stopera photographed and filmed the night, with the intent that heir work would serve as reference material for my next collection of textile collages.
DANCING WITH FRIENDS
“Dancing with Friends” embraces the kinetic joy of parades - colorful streams of moving bodies celebrating themselves in community with others, claiming and proclaiming their identities and values. These large-scale banners feature silhouettes of me and my friends painted onto sheer cloths, intertwined, embroidered, beaded, and stitched together. They hang loosely in the space, moving on the currents of circulating viewers, inviting them to join the dance. Each banner is worked by hand pushing into the intimacy and tenderness that cloth allows, in contrast and/or conversation with the boldness of parade.
“Dancing with Friends” originated during the pandemic, sparked by two main desires of mine. The first was to be reunited with my female friends in celebration, once the fog of Covid ultimately lifted. Their beautiful images appear in these works. The second was in response to the social transformations demanded by the uprisings after George Floyd’s murder. Many calls for empathy were answered through attempts to connect to shared and recognizable grief - across cultures and communities - and understandably so. Through “Dancing with Friends” I hope to offer shared joy as an equally powerful tool for building empathy with each other. I believe that when we see each other dancing, celebrating, and expressing joy, we are inviting togetherness and recognition of our shared humanity.
This project, and my work generally, is a celebration of self – the individual self that connects to history, community, relationship, and lived experience. All of that compiles into a multifaceted and nuanced identity that is aligned with others yet unique, worthy of affirmation in its wholeness. Dancing with Friends invites that affirmation through joy and community, believing that in dancing together we can find a unique space to unfurl our individuality.
VERSION
While my Jamaican lineage is fact, my relationship to the island and my ancestry has felt very distant at times. My physical body represents a continued familial story, but my personal connection sometimes feels tenuous. In my evolving body of work called “Version”, I confront these feelings of loss by exploring material permeability, unraveling, and negative space. Simultaneously, I anchor myself in my own Jamaican story by using motifs and materials that evoke strong sense memory – foods (sorrel/hibiscus blossom that I’ve used for painting and dying cloth, tamarind seeds left over from candies), traditional Jamaican madras fabric (its pattern referenced throughout), and the decorative ironwork swirls from my family’s home in Mandeville.
The collection title, “Version”, recalls the precursor name for Dub music; it is distinguished by the absence of the vocalist, leaving room for experimentation and evolution in that empty space, eventually becoming a new song of its own.
SHELL PARADE
This series of handmade textile banners is inspired by the visual and emotional language of parades, exploring social and personal ideals and desires. By transforming signage meant for public display into cloth, I pull it into a context of intimacy and individual meaning. Then by hanging a sign in my home, I am speaking to myself about myself; both asserting and claiming my values, my ideals; shaping and being shaped by my own hope.
PEOPLE AND PLACES
These works are acts of personal reconstruction, altars to sweetness preservation, prayers for abundance and divine guidance. I often combine embroidered images of myself and loved ones; transcribed text from my journals; and recycled cloths, in arrangements drawn from traditional quilting motifs.
TEXTILE ASSEMBLAGES
Textile assemblages are created from the leftovers of other projects. These scraps of works long-labored over with deep intention help me recalibrate to daily thoughts, feelings, gestures. They are small playgrounds where I experiment with color, material, technique, and composition. In reconstituting bits from eras of my life into new forms, I look at myself through different lenses and shape new interpretations of my choices, missteps, and pivots.
SHUTTLE
“Shuttle, In the weaving of cloth, a spindle-shaped device used to carry the crosswise threads (weft) through the lengthwise threads (warp).” - Encyclopaedia Britannica
We weave between the interior and exterior of the selves we construct, a volley of exposure and containment, evasion and revelation. So how about an opening + expansion + intertwining?
Alex Beaumont, a textile artist, and Lily Conforti, a dance artist, wove their mediums together to create this work. With the theme of transformation in mind, the artists start the evening from inside the frame. Out of sight of the viewers, the artist poke out only fingers, hands, and arms from between the cloth panels. Continuing on, the artists unfasten panels, revealing different colors and patterns on the back of the cloth. As the strict lines of the woven cloth box are slowly unraveled the dance movement expands and more of the body is revealed. The artists extend the cloth panels outward, around, above, transforming the closed frame space into more of an open shelter.