Sunday Service with Andrea Arrubla + BABZ Fair | 06.04.2017

So ready for upcoming Sunday Service hosted by Andrea Arrubla as part of BABZ FAIR 2017 and the line up is killer!!! The evening will reflect and celebrate the legacy of the seminal poet Essex Hemphill established among contemporary literary and visual artists with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, James Allister Sprang, Peter BD, and Karmenife X.


The 5th annualBABZ FAIR 2017 presented by Blonde Art Books is a weekend long event that features small press art and poetry publishers, and individual artist projects, alongside a program of performance, readings, and workshops. BABZ Fair will be taking place Friday, June 2 through Sunday, June 4, 2017.

Over the years the BABZ Fair has grown dramatically and this year the fair will feature art books and zines by over 100 publishers and artists from across the country. This year we are collaborating with artist Andrea Arrubla to produce the weekend programming. The full program schedule, including a new expanded program series, and workshop series, will be announced shortly.

Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

Sunday Service - A Raging Grace with Caitlin Baucom | 05.07.2017

NEXT WEEK we are BACK with the raging Sunday Service: Caitlin Baucom presents... An Only Child, Orlando Estrada, Greem Jellyfish, PAUL (Angelina Dreem),QUALIATIK, & Lorelei Ramirez. 
The evening, titled 'A Raging Grace,' will gather artists across disciplines who are lit from within by a burning well, and rather than combust use its fuels to go higher and brighter. 

‘It’s like having a sickness that gets more fierce as it passes on to wellness. We don’t have to view that period as an invitation to despair, but as a sign of potential transformation… whatever pain we are experiencing…’ –bell hooks

Working across performative disciplines, they are each also active as organizers and participants in their broader communities, acknowledging that the roots of rage go beyond the merely personal and its power can feed the world. Together ‘we admit that we don’t want to see the world blown up; we are for the human species.’ 
–Andrea Juno & V. Vale, Angry Women.

Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.
 

Sunday Service "Slumber Party" with Buzz Slutzky | 04.02.2017 (Queens)

Our rad ass series Sunday Service is back this week at the Knockdown Center with Buzz Slutzky presiding!  Brining in the awesome Jes Fan, Trace Peterson, and Catalina Schliebener to hash it out on the mic and screen taking on "Slumber Party" vibes relating to trans aesthetics and childhood.  We will be snacking on popcorn, magical color candy eggs, and covering our nails in glitter while we hash out the fun, mad, sweet, stuff. Sunday Service keeps rolling, finding ways to take on HOW we discourse, making frames, taking up space.  So proud of this series and can't wait to keep bringing more to Knockdown Center and YOU! See you there!    RSVP on fb HERE

UPDATE - Watch the full video HERE shot by James Tate from Intrinsic Grey

About Sunday Service
Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

Rethinking Feminism Panel at SOHO20 | 03.25.2017 (Brooklyn)

Thrilled to be joining Cat Tyc and an incredible line up of artists and thinkers at SOHO20 this week in an open format discussion tackling the ever changing role of feminism and the "right now" . I'm nervously excited to get into the thick of it, and getting to some nuance in a conversation that needs to get past branding and into purpose, ethics, and who defines. See you there! 

Participants include:  Ruby Brunton, Stephanie Acosta, Christen Clifford, Marianna Ellenberg, Victoria Keddie, Jasmine Gibson, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Sheetal Prajapati, Buzz Slutzky, Bishakh Som, Stephanie Strickland, and Wendy Vogel

SOHO20 presents NOW//NOW//NOW//NOW as part of the ongoing series Rethinking Feminism, moderated by writer and artist Cat Tyc. This event is centered around instigating conversation around the question of ‘What do we do now?’ in regards to the issues that the Women’s March has brought to the foreground of consciousness in regards to race, sexuality, gender binary identification, and class. Tyc invites fellow artists/writers/curators to speak about how they are are dealing with these issues in their creative work to help guide a conversation in the room about how to move forward.

Sunday Service is BACK with Niall Jones | 03.05.2017 (Queens)

WE ARE BACK with curator as conductor Niall Jones throwing down a rad line up and testing out new structural scores as a mode of presenting. This night is going to be full of movement, madness, poetic plans, and a dash of the occult. 

This month, Knockdown Center invites Niall Jones to curate Sunday Service. Niall has invited Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Effie Bowen, Angie Pittman, Raha, and Travis Sisk / Manifestany Squirtz to share work across mediums. The evening will explore the dance party and nightlife, historically and empirically, as a commingling of multiple bodies and multiple ethics. The dance party ostensibly functions as a movement, at once, for and against the sturdiness of identity, and all the while irreducibly in pursuit of (un)certain pleasures and intractable notions of self.

Night, the persistence of virtuosic utterances, when language slips into dance, into moan.

when language slips into dance, 
the persistence of virtuosic utterance,
into moan
Night

UPDATE - Watch the full video HERE shot by James Tate from Intrinsic Grey

Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

NEW SERIES - Sunday Service with MAMI | 02.12.2016 (Queens)

I am psyched to be opening the year right with a new series created with Alexis Wilkinson at the Knockdown Center titled SUNDAY SERVICE! I've been thinking about the ways we can communicate about subjects, how discourse might look as performance, how sharing helps create dynamic conversations, how making is speaking.  

For the premier of Sunday Service, Knockdown Center invites MAMIcurators Ali Rosa-Salas and Dyani Douze who in turn have invited Alexandra Bell, NIC Kay, Isabel Flower, Marcel Rosa-Salas, and YATTA to share projects in development across movement, writing, visual art, and sonic practices. With an insistence on collective care, we’ll process what we’ve witnessed together in a dialogue over drinks.

UPDATE - Watch the full video HERE 

Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

 

Power Share/Power Surge: A Panel Discussion (NY) 01.14.17

Thrilled to be moderating this panel at one of my creative homes, the Knockdown Center! Come thru NY!

Power Share/Power Surge: A Panel Discussion on Activism, Aging, Art,  Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Intersectional Feminisms, Sexuality, Trans Rights, and more. What can we do? Where do we connect? How can we share power?

Saturday, January 14, 2pm.

Curated and donated by Christen Clifford 

Moderated by Stephanie Acosta

Panelists: Ashton Applewhite, Ayana Evans, Buzz Slutsky and Pamela Sneed

Power Share/Power Surge, curated by artist and activist Christen Clifford, came about through her consideration of feminism and asking whether there was a difference between identity politics and civil rights, and how we can come together to share our power. Clifford invited four amazing artists and writers to connect, with the definition of  “connect” in mind as “a link to a power supply.”

Christen Clifford is an activist, curator, feminist performance artist, mother and writer whose work includes the PussyBow . She teaches at The New School.

This event is part of a fundraising series of music, performances, and workshops accompanying NASTY WOMEN exhibition, on view at Knockdown Center January 12-15th, 2017. 

STAY NASTY - Fundraiser ft. 4 Days of Music, Art + Performance
Day time performances are free and open to the public, while evening programming can be experienced through the purchase of a $20 all-access pass that grants you access to every performance happening in the building that evening. Proceeds in benefit of select charities working towards women’s reproductive health and community health initiatives.

Aquí y Allá CLOSING + Perf/Talks 12.18 (Philadelphia)

Bitter sweet moments of celebration! Come join J Soto and I, as we close out this placeless space, talk about what we have ruminating, see the work, watch the dances, and say good bye to our temporary Philly home.  Thanks to all who have come out! More info below! 

Please join us on Sunday, December 18th at 2pm for a performance by exhibiting artist Meg Foley followed by a gallery talk exploring all of our Nov-Dec exhibitions moderated by Philadelphia Museum of Art Curator Erica Battle. Exhibiting artists Kirk McCarthy, Kelsey Halliday Johnson, Stephanie Acosta, J Soto, and Meg Foley will be on hand to discuss their exhibitions and practices- an afternoon of bodies, things, images, ideas, and of course, snacks. 

Erica F. Battle is the John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she has worked on exhibitions and collection building since 2006. She is currently spearheading the production of a new video installation by Rachel Rose, a project that will inaugurate a series of co-commissions and joint acquisitions between the Museum and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy. Additional project highlights include Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies, I through VII (Fall 2016); the Philadelphia presentation of International Pop, a major exhibition originating from the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2015-16); Allora & Calzadilla: Intervals, a collaboration between the PMA and the Fabric Workshop and Museum (2015); Dancing around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp (2012); and Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens, the official U.S. entry to the 53rd Venice Biennale, which garnered the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Battle is an alumna of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and the University of Pennsylvania.

Exhibition Closing teaser by James Tate at Intrinsic Grey 

 

Aquí y Allá -Nov 25th Programming (Philadelphia)

Skip the shopping this Black Friday and instead meet us in our gallery for some decolonized snacks, tequila, and conversation.

MOURNING MOMENTS - Friday Nov. 25th 12:30-3:30pm

Vox Populi - 319 N 11th Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107

Artists Stephanie Acosta and J Soto open their informal ongoing conversation around Latinx/American identity while sitting in their current installation at Vox. Visit the work, the convo, the drink station. Let's spend the day shopping for thoughts and sharing in our rage, fear, joy, and questions. 

Aquí y Allá at Vox Populi (Philadelphia)

A new collaboration opens this week FRIDAY NOV 4th at Philadelphia's Vox Populi! 

J. Soto and Stephanie Acosta present Aquí y Allá, the result of a year-long dialogue focused on the overwhelming complexity of identifying as Latinx while representations in popular culture and the art world reify tired visions of otherness rather than expressing our contemporary presence. Both New York based artists working extensively in collaboration, Acosta and Soto chart out territory for a more dynamic dialogue. Aquí y Allá manifests as a collection of new artworks developed into two archives in the forms of video and sculpture; an object theatre.  Acosta resists the finality of anthropology and captures its fleeting nature through discursive translation engaging the photographic imprint and creating present futures. Soto complicates categorization by honoring contradiction and unintelligibility suggesting the mutable and evolving nature of the personal subject in tension with the national subject and sexuality.

Landing with Miguel Gutierrez at Gibney Dance

Thrilled to be joining the inaugural group of makers for Landing at Gibney Dance facilitated by Miguel Gutierrez. For the next 6 months I'll be furthering my choreographic game and working with artists like luciana achugar, niv Acosta, My Barbarian, Justin Vivian Bond Michelle Boulé Camille Brown, Ralph Lemon, Juliana May, Ben Prior, and Colin self.

Excited to be back in the movement studio and to show you what's next!

The Ladies Almanack Screening at MCA (Chicago)

Following right on the heels of Art EXPO! Drink in your fill of lesbian literature with panels, lectures, parties, exhibits, and readings culminating with the screening at the MCA.
 

Almanack Week | Schedule of Events:

09.27 |Tues| 4:30p @ The Grey Center Lab
Processing Histories: DIY Film and the Archive
A joint lecture by Stephanie Acosta and Daviel Shy, 4:30pm
929 E. 60th St., Ste 112 | Chicago, IL 60637

09.29 |Thurs| 8p
THE WHOLE HOG: Objects and Ephemera of the Ladies Almanack
An exhibition, short film release and dance party, 8:00pm
2557 West North Avenue | Chicago, IL 60647

10.02 |Sun| 2p @ Iceberg Projects
High Tea: A Ladies Almanack Book Brunch and Soundtrack Listening Party, 2:00pm
7714 N Sheridan Road | Chicago, IL 60626

10.04 |Tues| @ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - MCA SCREEN presents:
The Ladies Almanack, a Hometown Premiere
Free screening followed by Q+A with the filmmakers, 6:00pm
220 E Chicago Ave | Chicago, IL 60611

Links: www.theladiesalmanack.com | MCA Screening Facebook Event

We Also have limited edition vinyl of the film's soundtrack by LeCiel out and I had the pleasure of designing the cover and writing a small love note to you on the back. They will be available at all Almanack Week events! 

I Am A Potted Palm - Premiere Performance (Chicago)

I Am A Potted Palm will manifest in TWO events as part of IN>TIME16 , A Winter Long Performance Festival for Chicago.

SAT - Feb 6th @ 3-6p | LA LIMPIEZA - | Regards  2216 West Chicago Ave
A durational meditation on the limpieza espiritual, or spiritual cleansing, engaging elements of the hybrid spiritual practices and creating a microclimate amidst Slant, a sound installation by Ethan Rose at Regards. [fb event HERE]

This durational action will continue with the artist delivering each palm in a trek to Defibrillator gallery.  Join us for the evening length eruption!

MON - Feb 8th @7p | I AM A POTTED PALM | Dfbrl8r 1463 W Chicago Ave
An evening length performance amongst the palms, including cinematic bursts, objects, actions, light oceans, and fuchsia skies. In a rare chance to see Acosta perform solo, let's get clean, lets be salt, let's make oceans together. Epilogue with guest artist Joshua Kent! [fb event HERE]

[ Following the performance at Dfbrl8r we will migrate across the street to Beauty Bar at 8:30 for a special IN>TIME16 edition of SALONATHON! ]

FLEETING COMPONENTS + GRIDS - All Episodes are LIVE

Fleeting Components is a short documentary series created by Stephanie Acosta following the 4 part series GRIDS, a year long series presented by Radius. Thrilled to announce that all episodes are now streaming online! 

Watch ALL 4 episodes HERE! 

FLEETING COMPONENTS - Teaser from Stephanie Acosta on Vimeo.

Fleeting Components attempts to encapsulate the material and censorial worlds created and supported by alternative radio and sound explorers.  Using the GRIDS series as a container, we look in on the layers of making and that ensues when we make work for a moment of presence, for the air, for the waves, for the doing.

LeCiel Music Video Collaboration

LeCiel is an Singer, Emcee, Songwriter, Producer, Dancer, Alien, Creator, The Future, YOU. 

In early July 2015 I fell down a portal in a collaboration between LeCiel and my production company Intrinsic Grey.  The cosmic explosion is coming your way end of summer with her soulful, space age minimalism on an undercurrent of color and fire.