Halle-ouija, 2016
Halle-ouija was a onetime mysticism performance art piece that was led by Mollye Bendell and Leah Clare Michaels on November 11, 2016, as part of the Thirteen Ways to Protest series. Trump had recently been elected and Leonard Cohen had died on November 7, 2016. Mollye Bendell used a CNC Router to create a wood block, followed by a print of a Ouija board. The Ouija board was originally invented and designed in the artists’ hometown of Baltimore in 1890. Mollye Bendell used the laser cutter to create a special placard engraved with a quote from Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Together, Mollye Bendell and Leah Clare Michaels, led the group in a form of mystic resistance, using the Ouija board to ask Leonard Cohen for guidance in the Trump period. What came from this were letters that very closely spelled the words “symmetry,” “empathy,” and "symmetry." In the artists’ opinion, this message meant: Be the change you wish to see.
Resistant Cells, 2017
March 2017 - Part of the UMBC Spark Exhibition at Light City Baltimore
Statement:
Resistant Cells was a collaborative multi-channel video installation with algorithmically generated sculptures. The installation was composed of two celluloid structures and distorted projected video. The presence of the viewer triggered a reduction in the distortion, revealing an abundance of both natural and artificial subject matter. The structure's biomimicry, along with the viewer's action, were tools that blurred the distinction between the natural, artificial, and social. Using both a biological reality and a social metaphor, Resistant Cells aimed to explore diversity as a critical condition important for resistant acts.
Mediums:
Digital fabrication, algorithms, projection, FSR sensors, coroplast, and software [3dMax, Grasshopper, Isadora and Mad Mapper]
Mollye Bendell (’18, IMDA MFA)
Chinen Aimi Bouillon (’19, IMDA MFA)
Dilay Koçogullari (’19, IMDA MFA)
Leah Michaels (’19, IMDA MFA)
Mandy Morrison (’19, IMDA MFA)
Bryan O’Neill (’19, IMDA MFA)
Ezra Pailer (’19, BFA)
Nicole Ringel (’19, IMDA MFA)
Led by Lisa Moren, MFA
To learn more about this collaboration project visit here
Feminist Task Force XX: A Self-selective Service System Branch of Feminist Standard Bureau
Project Mission
We choose the roles we play. How do we choose our morals amongst interlaced and layered ideas of militarized violence of our society. How do we learn to be a non violent Human?
Feminism Fights Patriarchal Power is a performative installation that plays on the bureaucratic system of patriarchy. This collaborative installation hopes to engender deeper thoughts on how we all participate in a patriarchal society. Exhibition space will function as an educational and developmental recruitment system for matriarchal bureaucracy. Patriarchy has no gender. Many women and men alike consciously or unconsciously participate in patriarchal system that benefits them personally. Even when patriarchy is not beneficial, most think that the system of structure are unchangeable lacking imaginative power to perceive a just and fair distribution of power. Culture of patriarchy is made, so it can be unmade and reconstructed. Nothing is ever concrete because even concrete crumbles. We can build a better system because in the unwritten history we were not taught, it did and does exist, a system of shared power.
Participants are encouraged to take action through an application process to create thoughts on what it means to live by feminist morals in opposition to military morals, the poster boy of patriarchy, which seem to intertwine as more women gain “equal” rights in a militaristic patriarchal society. (Note: it is possible to have a demilitarized military. If this is confusing don’t be lazy and read more. International Relations Feminism is a good start. ) Patriarchy sustains its dominance by bureaucratic violence and militarized force implemented through hierarchical structure of command. FFPP plays on this structures of power through Matriarchal forms that will be officialized by the Feminist Standard Bureau. Final stage of the exhibition entails filling out theFeminist Service for Genuine Security (FSGS) Forms to join the Feminist Task Force XX, a self-selective service system that will be archived at http://www.feministmorals.tk
General Goal
Through CAMP and PLAY utilize patriarchal and military structure filtered through Feminist lens to expose the cruel nature of patriarchal and military domination. Create inclusive environment for all people regardless of gender, sex, race, nationality with awareness to further the thoughts on feminism as a human issue that needs to be accepted and shared by males as well as females in a violently dominated patriarchal mindset. Security shouldn’t come from violence and oppression of others. It should be through love and communal sharing and it's possible through culture of peace.
Major themes that will be explored by the Feminist Task Force XX:
What is Feminist Moral in disparity with Military Morals?
Dissect the interlaced nature of military morals in the systematized patriarchal society.
Investigate ways patriarchy is passed down to indoctrinate young minds molding the current patriarchal system through dominance in support of a military mindset.
How military predilection and the subliminal ways such ideologies are passed onto younger generations of humankind.
Understand the ways military ideas penetrate civilian lives
Power relation created to conquer another
Our goal is to exhibit the artistic feminists interpretation of the military mindset as a collaborative project utilizing each participating artists’ talents and skills as part of a sharing system.
Partnership
Curator in Residence is part of The Feminist Art Project - Baltimore.
The Feminist Art Project - Baltimore (TFAPB) is a grassroots, nomadic, non-profit arts incubator that supports and promotes self-identified women in the arts. Locally, we have been operating since the Fall of 2013, providing free opportunities to Baltimore artists and communities. TFAPB is an active arm of an international organization --The Feminist Art Project* -- and a Fusion Partnerships Inc. partner. We frequently collaborate with individuals, local non-profits and community organizations that parallel our mission, interest and passion, in order to enrich our public exhibitions and community programs.
