A
event
held at Arnolfini
on Saturday 21st September. The event starts at 19:30.
"A black femme goddess punk, nude and in charge" (TheChart) - How do we resist temptation, how do we slow down, how do we play, how do we survive?
Presented by Arnolfini as part of the Still I Rise expanded programme.
In this immersive solo work, Thomas investigates and embodies resistance, asking: “How do we resist temptation, how do we slow down, how do we play, how do we survive?”
Thomas traverses a multimedia installation, combining structural fragments of environments associated with labor, ritual, and hospitality such as locker rooms, strip clubs, waiting rooms, church pews, and field days.
Investigating forms through which black and brown people hold space for each other, Thomas ask, how to carry the multiplicities of being young, gifted, and black - powerfully engaging with the entangled histories of labor, subjugation, and resistance.
Keijaun Thomas
Keijaun Thomas is a New York based artist and current Franklin Furnace Fund Recipient for 2018. Thomas creates live performances and multimedia installations— her work investigates the histories, symbols, and images that construct notions of Black identity within Black personhood. Thomas earned their Masters degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thomas has presented work nationally and internationally in Los Angeles and Palo, Alto, CA; Portland, OR; Portland, ME; Chicago, IL; Saugatuck, MI; Steuben, WI; Boston and Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Miami, FL; and Taipei, Taiwan; Paris, France; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Istanbul, Turkey; Beirut, Lebanon; Saskatchewan and Vancouver, Canada; and the United Kingdom.
Her work centers and focuses on self/communal care in real time and building safer spaces for black and people of color to rethink, rework and reflect on the collective ancestral memory, differences as well as make space for our similarities.
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This performance is a part of DAYLIFE/NIGHTLIFE#1, foregrounding the experiences and perspectives of queer people of colour - and the Still I Rise expanded programme.
DAYLIFE/NIGHTLIFE is Arnolfini's new programme combining workshops, conversation, performance and parties into a jam-packed burst of activity.