By Thomas Choinacky
Between Applied Mechanics’ residency weeks at UMS (University Musical Society) in Ann Arbor, I wandered over to Detroit for a few days to get to know that town a little better and then flew down to Austin, Texas to work on a collaboration with my sister, Lisa Choinacky.
DETROIT
I was wonderfully hosted by friends Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker also known by their theater company A Host of People. They have used their entire house as a performance space for their piece The Modern Woman which catalogued one hundred years of women artists within the walls of their house: kitchen to bedroom. This took me back to Applied Mechanics’ Ses Voyages Sauvages, where we used ever nook and cranny of Becky’s West Philly apartment to produce a different biome in each room of her place. For A Hose of People the third floor of their house is also used in an ongoing way as both a rehearsal and performance space. I was delighted to meet a handful of their collaborators as they held the first rehearsal for their upcoming project while I was visiting.
It is interesting to see the similarities between Detroit and Philadelphia. Both industry towns which experienced big population declines after the 1950s. Sherrine and Jake drove me around the city sharing tidbits about the city and the arts community. Unlike Philly, Detroit is quite a vast and spread out city. Build with the guise of the power and future of cars it is difficult to get around the sprawling city. You really need a car to get around. But the arts are a sustaining feature throughout the neighborhoods I visited.
Exciting stops I had included the Heidelberg Project, the Arab American National Museum, and having Yemeni food for the first time in my life.
A last hurrah included an event at One Mile (a gorgeous warehouse space) which Ingrid LaFleur, an artist and arts advocate announced her candidacy for mayor. Even as a visitor to their community, it is inspiring to see a mayoral candidate use the arts as her platform to unite a community (!!!). It excites me about the future in this dark, capitalistic time.
AUSTIN AND SAN ANTONIO
Then I was then off to Austin. My sister Lisa Choinacky, a visual artist, and I are collaborating for the first time on an exhibition that will be at Terminal 136 in San Antonio. We are mashing up our two practices to build something new. With attention to my interest in architecture and mapping to Lisa’s process of symmetry and line we have found an intersection in thinking about how both of our practices require self-reflection. For us both, at this current moment where we can’t but help but talk about the political state we are in, we started thinking about how this installation can provide comfort and care. We want the gallery to be someplace else, a space that is inclusive, welcoming, and recharge ourselves and its visitors. I like that in our process we have been calling it “gallery not gallery”. We want the environment to be beyond the white cube.
We are thinking about labyrinths, the history of walls, and how to guide attention. As research I walked several labyrinths in both Austin and San Antonio. These spaces instigated reflection on the recent marches and walks I have made in the past month and year. There truly is something special in the winding journey that a labyrinth provides. In other meanderings, in an ordinary walk around San Antonio, I discovered how hard it is to find a cup of coffee in that town (I’ll tell you it’s not easy), but was I was happily distracted by the beautiful Riverwalk their downtown has which winds its way below street level. Outside of working on and painting the installation, my trip was highlighted by attending the opening of Liss LaFleur’s new show Greener Pastures at Women and Their Work gallery. The exhibition focuses on queerness within the cowgirl narrative. Liss is both a performance and media artist and it was exciting to see how she uses and presents performance in a visual art gallery. Using photos and video as documentation, she also showcased ephemera (peeshooters, spurs, horse blinders made for humans) that were used within her performances and happenings. Such an interesting intersection of materials. Enjoy some of the photos from my travels!
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