Free nail painting and hand massages! You’re probably rushing around this weekend. Take a break and relax here for a moment. Choose from a variety of polishes. No nail art, only solid colors.
Hanna M Owens is a feminist artist and writer from Baltimore, MD. She believes the best stories are about conflicting feelings, and her efforts remain under a similar umbrella: language, the body, and intimacy. She makes up one half of the collaborative Espand, alongside the artist Soheila Azadi. Owens holds an MFA in Studio Arts from UIC and has been clean from drugs and alcohol since November 1, 2005.
Tread is also important in my art practice. A single thread that I can use to get women’s eyebrows done; a practice that my aunt taught me and it was necessary for a woman to know. I use a single thread to create an intimate relationship between audience and me; I create a sisterly relationship while I make that person feel more beautiful.
I am an MFA student in the Moving Image program focusing on performance and installation art. My performances involve human interactions within the social sphere, while giving these interactions an artistic and critical meaning. My performances are transient social sculptures limited to specific time and space that have the potential of transforming a society. My experiences as a Muslim woman who has lived under a theocracy in Iran, and as an immigrant who is living in the U.S. under a democracy have motivated me to research the separation between the sexes (which is a stipulation of many orthodox religions), as well as the segregation between races.
In my installations and performances I utilize fabrics as a medium for performing complications and boundaries related to gender, politics, and race. Fabrics can separate genders as in the case of “hijab”, fabrics are used as political gestures as in “flags”, and fabrics play a roll in social class icons as in “clothes”.
Lindsey M Whittle received a BFA in painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2007. She taught English as a second language for 1 year in 2009, in a fashion high school in Gifu, Japan. Whittle spent 5 years from 2007-2012, teaching art to youth at Baker Hunt Cultural Art Center in Covington, KY. She continued her education studying fashion at the University of Cincinnati for 3 years from 2009-2012. She then went on to pursue a masters in fashion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2012- present, all while maintaining her position for the past 2 years as “Master Crafter” at Kiki Magazine, an internationally dispersed, award winning, ad- free fashion/DIY magazine for tween girls.
Jake Vogds is a multidisciplinary artist working in performance, video, photography, and costume. In June 2012, he was awarded the Buonanno Contemporary Practices Scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has performed and exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Defibrillator, Links Hall, Chicago Artist Coalition, Zhou B Arts Center, Sullivan Galleries, and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Kalamazoo, MI), among others. Currently, he is pursuing his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015) on a presidential merit scholarship working closely with 3rd Language Queer Zine Collective, Barbara Degenevieve, and Mark Jeffery.
Erica Gressman received her MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently works in Chicago. Her artistic focus is on fusing electronic noise music with performance. She attaches analogue electronics onto her body to create live biofeedback noise compositions to amplify an abstract body lost in a time of digital interference. She displays her body as a vehicle for sound and raw analogue technology to represent the human cyborg, an arena for both neutralizing the identity and queering technology. The machines used in her work are not used for their traditional purpose, but as musical instruments expressing her biological reactions. She forces her audience to feel a visceral experience with absurdity, sci-fi imagery, and robust spectacle. Her work represents a truth that we must revisit our flesh, our guts, and true inner desires through self-surgeries, destruction of walls, and the noise of internal chaos.
Rapid Pulse is made possible with support of the British Council, Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Society for Arts, Holiday Jones, Ordinary Projects, Mana Contemporary, Vittum Theater, Nightingale, Peter Grande, Canada Council for The Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, Video Pool Media Arts Center, Maxwell Colette Gallery, Lovely, Letherbee Distillery, Nha San Collective, Noi, Chopin Theater, International Beethoven Project, Australia Council for the Arts, Happy Camper, Shawarma Garden, Bedford and Red Square. Defibrillator is partially supported by grants from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
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