The Art of Performance @ UC Irvine 10th Edition

Curated and produced by Deborah Oliver

Thursday, March 13, 2025, 8 p.m.

Experimental Media Performance Lab (xMPL)

Two New Performance Works

Sacred Resistance
By Patrisse Cullors with Ashley Blakeney and Darius Williams
Sacred Resistance is an exploration of the sacred act of safeguarding our essence, our being, and our collective history as Black women. Originally commissioned by the LACE Performance Series "Abundance," this work serves as a profound meditation on the themes of defense, healing, and empowerment through the ancestral and contemporary experiences of Black femme warriors.

The Open: A collective performance by UCI students from winter 2025
By Simon Leung
Using “radical juxtaposition” as a guiding principle, The Open is a collaborative performance developed as an experimental artwork within the New Genres area of the Art Department. Produced under the direction of Professor Simon Leung, this project explores how the social & political dissonance of our age intersects both private life and the public sphere.

The performances are followed by a Q & A with the audience.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Art and the Jacki Apple Fund.

Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist, and abolitionist from Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured at The Broad, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Frieze LA, The Hammer Museum, The Fowler and a host of theaters, galleries, and museums across the globe. Patrisse has won numerous awards for her art and activism. In 2020 she launched a one of its kind online MFA program at Prescott college. She also launched the Crenshaw Dairy Mart with fellow artists Noé Olivas and Ali Reza Dorriz.

Her current work and practice is focusing on “Abolitionist Aesthetics,” a term she has advanced and popularized to help challenge artists and cultural workers to aestheticize abolition. She has recently founded The Center For Art and Abolition- a trailblazing nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering abolitionist artists and leveraging the transformative power of art to catalyze social change. Patrisse’s mission is to invite all of us to grow towards abolition through intergenerational healing work that centers love, collective care, and art.

Image credit: Ori Whispers Procession, Fowler Museum, by Patrick Shao

Free admission - no reservations necessary

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