ArtVentures: Animal Mappings with Rachel Kessler
What can we learn from the way other animals sense the world around them? If we move through space as a bat, what do we notice that we might not as humans? Cross-sensory exploration opens up aspects of our everyday world that are extraordinary. Inspired by the upcoming Bugs & Beasts Before the Law exhibition and its reflection on the constraints and freedoms of different bodies, we will re-imagine our spaces by attempting to navigate them as non-human animals, sketching our movements and spaces using our ears as our guides. Be ready with a piece of paper to draw on, and your preferred drawing materials, for this combination movement, drawing, and sensory activity.
About the artist:
Rachel Kessler explores landscape and community through writing and multi-disciplinary collaboration. Her work is deeply rooted in place: she lives and works on Yesler Way, the street her great-great grandparents immigrated to, worked on, and died on. As artist-in-residence at the public housing project Yesler Terrace, she activated a vacant apartment slated for demolition with community story-telling, potlucks, music, dancing, and collective murals. She co-founded the collective Wa Na Wari, a residential reclamation project centering Black art and media in Seattle’s Central District. As a mother of young children with limited resources she experimented with boundary-breaking performance art and video, co-founding interactive poetry collaborations Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society. Their book of collaborative poems, 100 Rooms, is forthcoming Spring 2021.
The upcoming cycle of ArtVentures will be conducted online, via Zoom. Join us for artfully imagined sessions that will move you beyond the limits of your screens, as well as foster meaningful connections through them. ArtVentures take place between 1 and 2:30 PM on first Sundays from November to June. FREE!
