Psalm

A selection of photographs and films to be screened in multi-channel. One film, "Equinox," will depict a Quaker meeting for worship in real-time and will function as a constant within the installation, acting as an armature for shorter films that poetically interweave ideas around silence, darkness and light, collectivity and isolation, queerness, ecology, secular spirituality, and grief.

Stylized, sculptural, concrete pews arranged opposite each other are (finances permitting), the intended seating for this multi-channel installation. 

Given the scope and potential cost of producing this multimedia project, it is possible to scale down the number of films, photographs, and sculptural components with the understanding that they will eventually constitute part of a larger, ongoing project. The sculptural pews can be substituted with traditional seating.

The films, which will represent my first foray into film-making, are informed by my upbringing as a queer, brown adolescent growing up on the conservative periphery of Los Angeles. Their format, a filmic “mixtape,” owes as much to my early experiences tape-trading and watching music videos on MTV as it does to the history of art. Making meaning with and through music and its accompanying visuals was formative. Having grown up far from any museums, the music video was the first form of art to which I was routinely exposed. Making and trading mixtapes was an early form of community and an activity I have continued into adulthood as a part of my practice. (See Heaven is a Prison mixtape published by Loose Joints and  The Debris of an Unknown Celebration published by MoCA Tucson).