Authority, Emotion, and Exclusion
Two day participatory performance and screening series / 2019
In collaboration with Fred Schmidt-Arenales
Students, professors, staff, and administrators at Universities in Philadelphia were invited to this intensive participatory event to examine two primary themes. The first was the unconscious and the taboo in higher education in Philadelphia, which participants explored by noticing their own group dynamics over the course of the event. The second was the experience of being recorded for use as artwork while attempting to do this vulnerable work. Over the two days, participants were led by a group of trained Group Relations practitioners, as they witnessed and communicated their collective experience of their group. The group discussed the impacts of race, class, occupation, gender, sexuality, and ability on their capacity to cohere with one another and with the authority figures. The event was audio recorded for use in future reenactment (see TLSW).
The project had an accompanying a screening series of seven films exploring group dynamics and institutional reflexivity:
Bloody Beans / Directed by Narime Mari Benamer
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One / Directed by William Greaves
Ghost Hunting / Directed by Raed Andoni
Blue Tape / Directed by Kathy Acker and Alan Sondheim
Them / Directed by Artur Zmijewski
Nothing Ventured / Directed by Harun Farocki
The Task / Directed by Leigh Ledare + Discussion with Leigh Ledare
A pdf of the project website may be found here.
Project support provided by the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, University of Pennsylvania