Body Fusion Project
In this project I wanted students to work collaboratively to explore notions of forced intimacy. The project entailed creating an environment or garment for two people that forced a closeness.
Meal Time
In this piece the participants paint each other's identities with food. They begin masked as if their faces are blank canvases.
Power Exchange
This student was interested in her tendency to stare at people until they looked away and the power dynamics that the gaze holds.
Solipsism
This work takes intimacy to a haunting level. The collaboration experimented with techniques to try and convey a dissolution of the self.
Identity Equalizer
In this project we looked at ritual costumes from around the world as well as the Sound Suits of Nick Cave and considered the notion of what it means to lose one's identity inside of a protective covering. We talked at length about the powers that are obtained from the spirits when wearing the mask or the costume and the hidden-ness of the wearer frees them. For this project students were to make a costume that completely disguised their identity and then wear this in some kind of performance that would challenge public perceptions of identity.
Move to New York City
This student tries to emulate the feelings of displacement when moving to New York City from a much more rural part of the country.
Jardin Des Tulleries
This student goes for a more material based approach with a striking presence.
What Are You
This student includes a few stills of his process in the beginning of the film making it more documentarian.
The Marcia Tucker Project
When I was a graduate student in sculpture at RiSD, I was so fortunate to enroll in one of the few classes Marcia Tucker would teach in her life. It was one of the best courses I ever took in my time in school and I will remember her forever. In one of her assignments, we were to meet her on the corner of Prince St. and Broadway in SoHo at the start of class. We were instructed to all wear khaki pants and white button down shirts and that when we arrived we were only to do what she did. No questions, no talking, no laughing. We began to follow her lead as we paraded around, in and out of stores, bars, hotels... sometimes seating ourselves, other times standing as a group in the middle of some establishment. We were a force that was noticed. Passers-by were curious but we kept on moving. It taught us about power in a much more subtle way. It was about belonging, exclusion, purpose and perception. We saw ourselves differently and saw the world shift around us. Marcia Tucker died in 2006 and I decided to recreate her project in her memory in the hopes that my students would get out of it what I did many years ago.