This month I’m excited to be a part of two interesting projects: a multi-stage, cross-disciplinary exhibition at Southern Exposure and an event in the Artists Drawing Club series at the Asian Art Museum

This month I’m excited to be a part of two interesting projects: a multi-stage, cross-disciplinary exhibition at Southern Exposure and an event in the Artists Drawing Club series at the Asian Art Museum.

Reverse Rehearsals was curated by Nathan Lynch and Michele Carlson and involves seven writers and six artists working in three phases. First Terry Berlier, Julie Henson, and Patrick Gillespie created large installations that could serve as stages. Then Maria Porges, Jenene Nagy, and I worked on “props” and images to respond to and populate those sets. Finally the writers, Dodie Bellamy, Victoria Gannon, Susan Gevirtz, Kari Marboe, Pam Martin, Kyle Metzner, and Michael Swaine will develop pieces to be presented during the closing event/reading.

The Artists Drawing Club series is curated by Marc Mayer and is meant to provide a space for artists to experiment with new ideas and projects in a public venue. I’m particularly excited that 9th Island and other lands will also feature the work of Kapi’olani Lee, a great filmmaker and artist. She’ll be showing her short animated film “In the Land of Po” and joining me in discussion.

I’ve approached my work for the two projects as the first experimental steps in a longer exploration. The event at the the Asian Art Museum gave me the chance to start the foundational research for this series. I’ve been interviewing other Hawai’i “expats”—folks who grew up in Hawai’i (or in some cases are part of the Native Hawaiian diaspora)—to find objects that represent their relationship the islands. That work is about the direct stories that people have told—recreating the specific objects and documenting narratives behind them. The pieces at Southern Exposure are a more interpretive approach to those stories and objects. But some of the specific details are either taken from the stories of others or my own associations with life away from Hawai’i.

It’s been helpful to have the space in both projects to test out new ideas and work through some frustrations and dead-ends. With my last, long-running project around the Los Padrinos/Los Amigos site, I had gotten used to presenting the final stages of something that had been refined over years. At work, we often talk to artists about how it is ok to propose grant events that are work-in-progress oriented so that they have the freedom to focus most of their time on developing the creative project (rather than staging the final production). But I haven’t really had the opportunity to create that kind of experimental structure for my own practice. Sometimes it takes institutions and people open to supporting risk and potential failure.

Exhibition/Event Details:

Reverse Rehearsals
Southern Exposure
May 7, 2013-June 1, 2013
closing reception: May 30, 7-10 pm

From a land of low-lying clouds (18+18), spraypaint, drawing media on paper. Cut-out wood screen installation by Julie Henson. Wall painting by Jenene Nagy.