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Chain Mail
2023
Old Friends/New Friends at Creativity Explored (San Francisco, CA)
Curated by Natasha Boas
Sculpture by Reniel Del Rosario
Lighting by Mario Pires Cordeiro
Sound Lux by Philip Glass
Old Friends/New Friends at Creativity Explored (San Francisco, CA)
Curated by Natasha Boas
Sculpture by Reniel Del Rosario
Lighting by Mario Pires Cordeiro
Sound Lux by Philip Glass
Chain Mail studies the paradox of ceramic chains. Their physical properties—what sounds ceramic links make, how they move, what tasks they can be used for, and their innate fragility—are points of inquiry. These chains will act as both source material for movement generation as well as objects with which to partner. Explicit and implicit order imposed on bodies and social relationships—within art institutions, within white spaces, within public space—take a toll on the body. We hope to offer site-specific, interactive performance as a break from some of this patterning. We attend to our own bodies as performers positioned in relation to the ceramic chains and the physical space, and also consider the way that viewing performance places the viewers’ bodies in relationship with object and space.
Together, Emma Lanier, Reniel Del Rosario, and Cauveri Suresh create site-specific performances that consider relationships between bodies, between body and object, body and space, and object and space. Our work originates in our responses to the specific architecture of the space in which we are working, context about the space’s use (gallery, public commons, community center, etc.), as well as the history and politics of each space. Our collective works within frameworks that trouble the institutional boundaries of our respective mediums and attempts at ordering bodies and social relationships, and views freedom as an inherent quality of all bodies. As postmodern dancemakers, Lanier and Suresh generate and compose movement from methods like scoring, task, and deep attunement to the needs and expressions housed in the body. They perform dances to understand how bodies in motion impact other bodies, impact objects, and impact the space around them. As a ceramic artist who works with appropriation, art history, and installation, Del Rosario’s primary mode of critique and process is satirizing consumer establishments and trends, wherein he coaxes smaller, undisclosed details—whether unimportant or swept under the rug to keep up an image—into light. His works and larger installations are made to playfully discuss, dismantle, and recontextualize the seemingly-endless bound of a world tediously tied to capitalism.
This project received support from:
Creativity Explored 2023
Merde Project 2023
Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant 2023
Review by Jen Norris