To younus, I will kiss you in heaven
Performance (running as mark making), 2024
Made on the Ancestral lands of the Suquamish and Duwamish peoples
In this work, I ran the final sentence from a message posted to Queering the Map, an app that allows users to post public geotaged messages. The message was posted from northern Gaza, in the first month of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza strip.
This piece is a reinterpretation of my piece CRASH Course, a piece that honors my friend Quentin, a graffiti writer and runner who passed away in 2016. It is a prayer, a meditation, and a message.
By running Quentin’s tag, CRASH, I felt I was able to communicate with him, letting him know that I am continuing his legacy, and through the communion of ritual, running, and art making.
In this continuation, I hope to do the same, and to amplify the voice of the Palestinian who shared this message, to hopefully make it as loud as possible.
Running and movement is a way to tap into emotion and presence, a way to process grief. It feels impossible to comprehend the horrors we are witnessing in Gaza today. Messages like this one touch my heart even when we have been desensitized to the horror. It is also a way of memorializing and honoring the queer people of Gaza, who very much exist, despite counter-narratives of the occupier. It places the reader in their shoes and asks us not to look away from the horrors of colonization, the horror that US-backed Israel is inflicting on Palestinians.
The Hand That Feeds You
Sculpture, Performance
Elysian Park, Los Angeles, 2023
Muslin, Heat Reflective Fabric, Polyfil, Flannel
Performed by Maggie Beasley and Ariana Waters
SLOW DANCE X SCHINDLER HOUSE
SLOW DANCE x Schindler House
Los Angeles, CA
May 2022 - Oct 2022
SLOW DANCE x Schindler House is a score and two-channel audio tour of the Schindler House, and the third iteration of the interactive performance sound piece SLOW DANCE. Participants are asked to interpret aural instructions that create a personal choreography, allowing new access to and interpretation of the house. 🔗
This piece was one of four audio tours created for the Mak’s Center’s centennial celebration; Schindler House: 100 Years in the Making.
SKIRT PICNIC (TV DINNER)
Skirt Picnic (TV Dinner)
Echo Park, Los Angeles
February 2022
Digital by Rebecca Johnson
Film by Sage Roebuck
Video by Ray Freedman
Eight people enjoy a picnic on a hilltop in Echo Park, Los Angeles.
hosted on vimeo
UNTITLED (SUNRISE PERFORMANCE)
Untitled
(Sunrise Performance)
Kelso Dunes, Mojave Desert
May 2021
Film by Sage Roebuck
Digital (color) by Esther Park
I sat atop a hill, overlooking a wide landscape. A long skirt fell from my waist and to the land around me, touching everything on the hilltop.
A performance to recreate this dream, a chance to recognize unconscious images in conscious perception, as previously explored in I Catch Myself (2019).
