Thursday 21 February, 2019, 7.30 pm, at Alice Yard
On Thursday 21 February, 2019, artist Shannon Lewis will present a one-night installation of her ongoing project Get Me Bodied at Alice Yard, offering “an intricate and philosophical narrative, touching on issues of decoloniality, self-worth, and commodification.”
All are invited.
The artist writes:
“In Get Me Bodied, shapeshifting is an adaptation. It is the work we do to be able to move between spaces, classes, and geographies. But what does that work — the constant reworking — do to our bodies or our minds? It is about the performance and the objects that we collect along the way. We primp, preen, fix up — look sharp, grow, develop appendages that are useful until they’re not. It is about mobility, intersecting with sexuality, gender, race, immigration, class, economics, and social climbing.
“The task of a migrant is to learn the anatomy of a new society and reconstruct yourself in a new accommodating form. This framework and your performance in it are never invisible to you. So you either become flexible with the constant social contortions, or you fold over and break. The work sits in a space that contemplates the push and pull of this operation. It sits in a space that has fun with high femme performance fantasy and total exhaustion. Self-making as sport, for access and for life.”
Shannon Lewis is a Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist with Trinidadian roots, whose practice encompasses painting, installation, and performance. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Germany. She has a BA from OCADU in Toronto (2006) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2014).
On Thursday 21 February, 2019, artist Shannon Lewis will present a one-night installation of her ongoing project Get Me Bodied at Alice Yard, offering “an intricate and philosophical narrative, touching on issues of decoloniality, self-worth, and commodification.”
All are invited.
The artist writes:
“In Get Me Bodied, shapeshifting is an adaptation. It is the work we do to be able to move between spaces, classes, and geographies. But what does that work — the constant reworking — do to our bodies or our minds? It is about the performance and the objects that we collect along the way. We primp, preen, fix up — look sharp, grow, develop appendages that are useful until they’re not. It is about mobility, intersecting with sexuality, gender, race, immigration, class, economics, and social climbing.
“The task of a migrant is to learn the anatomy of a new society and reconstruct yourself in a new accommodating form. This framework and your performance in it are never invisible to you. So you either become flexible with the constant social contortions, or you fold over and break. The work sits in a space that contemplates the push and pull of this operation. It sits in a space that has fun with high femme performance fantasy and total exhaustion. Self-making as sport, for access and for life.”
Shannon Lewis is a Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist with Trinidadian roots, whose practice encompasses painting, installation, and performance. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Germany. She has a BA from OCADU in Toronto (2006) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2014).
