Kantor Family Gallery at Hyde Park Art Center
Captured as part of the installation, "Papinta, the Flame Dance" is "projected" from an iPhone on a miniature easel that faces down into a water filled iron skillet. This vignette confronts a viewer in an intimate display that is both modern and of our time and yet so far away in the past. I chose this video because the dancer, Papinta, seemed to capture an avant-garde freedom in her self-designed dress and choreography of carbon arc light that makes me in this time relate and feel free. Here is a woman in charge of her clothes, her movements, and her lighting fully expressing herself across time. This is where I infuse my contribution to the conversation of art. I choose to put her non-colonialized dance, dress, and contribution into a museum display, framing this as art. I choose to use my artistic platform as an inclusive curatorial platform.
I expand the way an artist can use ideas and mediums. This collection of items carries its own story in material choice and speaks about my class, station, and understanding of culture in America. A skillet can provide nourishment in a hot boil, water reflects and sustains, paintings enable quiet introspection, and dance, celebrates emotion. Can we use technology in a feminine way going forward? Can it include, expand, and inspire rather than bait with fear? (this work is currently on view at the Hyde Park Art Center and available for purchase through that space and proceeds will be split to benefit community programming and support my practice in 2025.)