Tape Piece

A study on Conformity.  This work is about the ongoing oppression of women: the impact of patriarchy throughout history has kept women “inside red tape” to limit our freedom of movement, and places us in a tight package to inhibit us from becoming powerful.

Performed by Sarah Lisette Chiesa

University of Washington School of Architecture

Feminist Performance Art: History and Praxis'

Is a course I created as a master's student in Dance at the University of Washington. In this course, the students engage both creatively and theoretically in approaches to performance-making while analyzing performance art from a feminist perspective. In spring 2020, I included weekly lectures of eight feminist performance artists, feminist theory, history of feminism, and two artists collaborating as guest lecturers. For the final exam, I asked students to build a feminist performance, text, or photograph in response to domestic labor and its representation in Jeanne Dunning's video Icing (1996). Dunning's video is included in an iteration of the Viewpoints exhibition series. The Henry's Associate Curator, Nina Bozicnik, visited the class and joined us in our conceptual discussions on identity, equal rights movements, the current Covid-19 pandemic, how to represent your identity without using your body, preservation, gender neutral and counter sexual concepts, and control. Shared here are the final 5–10 minute performance responses that students made.

 Henry Art Gallery Online Video 2020