Dispatch Gallery

Going Together, Bobby Sax

“In the winter of 2019, I put a call out on Instagram and to anyone I'd meet at the cafe I worked at, to send me a recording of their first commute of the day. I was interested in hearing what that sounds like for each person. I was thinking a lot about the movements people make each day, the sounds that surround them depending on where they are or where they're going. I believe that there is a soul and music in the relationship between the sounds we hear, whether it's people or leaves, a train leaving or cars honking. I thought about what it might be like to walk to work while listening to another's commute at the same time, to in some way transmute my experience with theirs. I then layered these sounds on one another to create a synthesis between our disparate experiences.” - Artist, Bobby Sax 

"Shared experience (though private, and subjective as it all is, we are all a part of a shared collective experience) I am interested in connections that are not physical but transcend what is physical - dreams, collective cultural streams, having a similar idea as someone else or reading the same book, hearing the same sound. Being asleep at the same time someone else is asleep.” This statement was written on November 29, 2019.

Dispatch Gallery will stream Going Together by Bobby Sax via IG TV on April 13, 2019, @dispatchgallery 

Bobby Saxis an artist, friend, collaborator, and curator of moments. They currently live in Chicago with family and create with friends and pen pals made through the internet. Their dream is to have a traveling art van that they can set up impromptu workshops in public parks across the country. 

Trio A Translation Project, Cherrie Yu

“In summer 2020, I started translating Yvonne Rainer’s 1965 dance Trio A with a series of individuals with different professions and backgrounds. The individuals each had a loved person transcribe the original dance into a written score, which we worked with to devise new movements. During the rehearsal process, each performer produced writings that became the voiceover to the movements. The project takes the form of a film essay.” - Artist, Cherrie Yu.

Cherrie Yu is a 25-year-old artist born in Xi’an, China. She currently lives and works from Chicago, IL. She has shown work at Chicago Cultural Center, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Links Halland Mana Contemporary Chicago. She has been an artist in residence at ACRE, Contemporary Calgary Museum, and a visiting artist at Emory University. She is the awardee of the 2020 Kala Art Institute Media Award Fellowship and will be an artist in residence at Yaddo Foundation in 2021. cherrieyu.cargo.site 

every choice is a contradiction to itself, Cynthia Post Hung and Erin Peisert 

Erin and Cynthia will present a diptych of images that consider duality / the absolute / the indefinite. Their image-making seen in process, positions neutral / coincidental / contradictory / improvised / interdependent movements while occupying individual frames. They will explore the inherent qualities of sameness and opposition that a pair presents in this context. 

"We are interested in digging deeper into the experience of mirroring, and how it creates connection through the digital space. The first iteration was an exploration of that feeling, and we were surprised by the connections between us, and how the connection was perhaps lost for the viewer. We are hoping to build off this performance with another." - Erin Peisert and Cynthia Post Hunt, Artists

Join us Friday, April 19th for a live performance of every choice a contradiction to itself via Zoom and Instagram Live. The performance will begin at 6 pm (CST) / 7 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom performance has been recorded. 

Cynthia Post Hunt is a curator and artist based in Northwest Arkansas. Through a fluid practice of connection and collaboration, Post Hunt explores commonalities within the shared human experience. Practice as research, she creates rituals, games, and gestures surrounding the self, loss, and death. Time, memory, and the body are integral materials in her work. Post Hunt is the programmer of dance and theater at the Momentary and the co-founder of INVERSE performance art festival. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently pursuing her MA in curating from Aarhus University. www.cynthiaposthunt.com 

Erin Peisert’s work explores interdependence, consciousness, and power by using performative gesture to reorganize relationships to/in public places. Her work has been shown at Duo Museum of Modern Art (China), Power Station of Art (China), Defibrillator, and Inverse Performance Art Festival, among others. After repatriating from China to the US, she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC. @riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin on Instagram

ALL THE SOARINGS OF MY MIND BEGIN IN MY BLOOD, Danielle Hatch

ALL THE SOARINGS OF MY MIND BEGIN IN MY BLOOD is a site-specific performance, digital photographs, and video that took place on the 2020 Fall equinox, in the western Utah desert. The performance and subsequent film are an act of ritualizing and reconnecting to the physical and psychological journeys of our female ancestors. Photography by Emily Hawkins, Original Music by Amos Cochran

Join us Friday, April 2nd for a live screening of ALL THE SOARINGS OF MY MIND BEGIN IN MY BLOOD by Danielle Hatch and Sunset’s burning late by Jenny Raffalson. Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with the artists Danielle Hatch and Jenny Raffalson via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 6 pm (CST) / 7 pm (EST).

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom panel discussion has been recorded. 

Danielle Hatch is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the female body’s relationship to the built environment, notions of artificiality, and power structures, through site-specific installations, sculptures, and performances. She has a BA in architecture from Wellesley College and an MFA in Spatial Studies from UC-Santa Barbara. Danielle currently resides in NW Arkansas with her partner and three children and works as an Art Educator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. www.daniellehatch.com 

Notation, Eetu Linnankivi

“Musicians are not born only in conservatories and music academies. Musicians are born at workshops, shores of the lakes, beneath feathers. 

An instrumentalist doesn’t start one’s music from emptiness, he joins the flow that already exists.” - Eetu Linnankivi, Artist 

Notation will screen over IG TV on Dispatch Gallery’s Instagram @dispatch_gallery on April 27th. 

Eetu Linnankivi is an artist working with video, audio, and photography. Using these media is his way to study the world. The main themes he is keen on are connection between nature and humans and the challenges of growing up as a balanced man and expectations concerning male emotions. In life and art, he admires people who are able to do things in new ways and make creative decisions that others would not find worth trying. Linnankivi has been given OFF_AWARD at the OFF_Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia in 2017. He lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. www.eetulinnankivi.com 

And With These Hands, Farihah Aliyah Shah

And With These Hands explores the theme of emotional labor and intersectionality. It is an intimate conversation between me and my mother (June Shah) about her experiences of the unspoken burden she carried and continues to carry as a Black woman in a variety of roles as wife, mother, daughter, coworker, and citizen. The conversation is accompanied by visuals of her braiding hair - a loaded image of care and metaphorical symbol of community building. Her dialogue is overlaid with the words of Dr. Angela Davis from her speech Black Women in America (1974) at the Black Women Spring Forum at UCLA. The speech speaks of the sacrifices of women throughout history and specifically their contribution to the civil rights movements. In light of the recent pandemic and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the narrative of leadership, physical and emotional support of female-identified bodies continues to hold merit.

Join us Saturday, April 17th for a live screening of Come Wash with Me by Kesha Lagniappe, And With These Hands by Farihah Aliyah Shah, and Dystopia Ideal by Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez. Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with artists Kesha Lagniappe, Farihah Shah, and Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 12 pm (CST) / 1 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom panel discussion has been recorded. 

Farihah Aliyah Shah (BFA, BHRM) is a contemporary lens-based artist originally from Edmonton, Alberta now based in Bradford, Ontario, Canada. Exploring issues of racial identity, land, and collective memory, Shah seeks to challenge the lack of representation of disenfranchised bodies in the photographic canon and representational art, encouraging others to take agency of their image. She currently serves as a Board Member at Gallery 44, Centre of Contemporary Photography, and a member of Women Photograph an organization that advocates for Female Identified and Non-Binary photojournalists. Shah has exhibited internationally in Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Scotland, and South Korea. www.farihahshah.com 

Telephone Tango, Grace DeVies and Jeremy Wong

Telephone Tango by Grace DeVies and Jeremy Wong charts a week's worth of voicemails left between two friends separated as they welcome in the new year of 2021. They manage to never reach each other directly, only communicating sporadically through voicemail. An awkward dance ensues in which they contemplate the past, the present, and what the uncertain future holds. 

Join us Friday, April 30th for a live screening of Telephone Tango by Grace DeVies and Jeremy Wong followed by a live performance of One Day We’ll Waltz Again by Millicent Kennedy via Zoom and Instagram Live. The performance will begin at 7 pm (CST) / 8 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom performance has been recorded. 

Jeremy Wong is an interdisciplinary artist based out of Pittsburgh and Chicago. He works in a variety of media including but not limited to ceramics, sculpture, video, and performance. Addressing themes of anthropomorphism, familial ties, and interpersonal relations, art functions as a means for the artist to make sense of the inherent dissonances in everyday life. Wong is currently pursuing his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Grace DeVies is a performance artist currently based in Erie, Pennsylvania. Creating art centered around ritual and the human emotional experience, they find themself inspired by psychology, sexuality, socio-political issues, and the spaces they perform in. DeVies’s passion for performance lies in the concept that they will always have the one thing that they need to express and evoke emotion— the body.

Buzz Aldrin's Love Song For The Moon, Hal Baum

Buzz Aldrin's Love Song For The Moon is an animated music video for Hal Baum’s song of the same title. Hal drew each panel on receipt paper, using pens, crayons, and some collage elements. The video is composed of over 1,000 hand-drawn frames. The song was recorded for Hal’s first album "Love Songs For the Moon" and was produced by Patrick Budde at Preserve Records. He also played the lion's share of the instruments in the recording.

When Hal first wrote the song it was about missing an ex-girlfriend who lived in another state, but during the process of making the music video it shifted to be less about romantic love and more about platonic love. It became clear over the course of making the video that the video was actually about missing Hal’s friend John (Cibula) who had died a short while before he started the project.

Join us Saturday, April 3rd for a live Q&A with artist and musician Hal Baum via Instagram Live. The conversation will begin at 5 pm (CST) / 6 pm (EST) via Dispatch Gallery’s Instagram Live @dispatch_gallery.

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page and IG TV once the discussion has been recorded. 

Hal Baum is a multimedia artist, musician, writer, and performer from the South Side of Chicago, currently living in Los Angeles. Hal's work has been showcased at theaters around Chicago including The Neo-Futurists, The Annoyance, Schuba's, Subterranean, and The Laugh Factory. In 2016 Hal was invited to be an artist in residence at Holden Village, in Washington state. In 2019 he released his debut album Love Songs For The Moon on the Preserve Records label. Whether it's solo performance, music, or animation, Hal always has something deeply personal and very important to tell you, but presents it with an absurd humor that defies you to take him too seriously. www.halbaum.com

Sunset’s burning late, Jenny Rafalson

“When individuals migrate across geographic borders, whether by choice or by forced displacement,  they carry with them an immense collection of memories of home. Across cultural traditions, many of these memories are rooted in plant-based knowledge and ritual: recollections of their use in the kitchen, in making medicine, in childhood play, as decorative elements in the home, even as commodities for sale. For many migrants, these memories conjure feelings of being at home or out  of place; they function as windows into the elaborate histories, social contexts and shared  experiences of moving across national lines and through cultural worlds. This project talks about  yearning, detachment, frustration and lack of belonging I feel for the place I call home through  memories of plants, individuals and landscapes from home.” - Jenny Rafalson, Artist 

Join us Friday, April 2nd for a live screening of ALL THE SOARINGS OF MY MIND BEGIN IN MY BLOOD by Danielle Hatch and Sunset’s burning late by Jenny Raffalson. Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with the artists Danielle Hatch and Jenny Raffalson via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 6 pm (CST) / 7 pm (EST).

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom panel discussion has been recorded. 

Jenny Rafalson (b. 1986, Russia grew up in Israel) is a photographer and a video artist, currently  living and working in Chicago. Recently she received her MFA from the photography department  at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2020) and her BFA from Hadassah College Bachelor  program for Photography and Communications (2013).  Rafalson exhibited a double exhibition, Transplanting, at 062 gallery in Chicago with Tracy Brannstorm as part of a collaboration grant between Arts, Science + Culture Initiative funded by the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute. She was a recipient of the James Weinstein Memorial Fellowship for 2019-2020. In 2017 Rafalson won the Open Portfolio  Review: Outstanding project award at Israel Photography Festival as a result of that she exhibited in  2018 a solo show, ’Weary afternoon sun’, at The sixth Israel Photography Festival, in Tel- Aviv,  Israel.  

Rafalson questions the meaning of belonging in a modern society, detachment and yearning for  home that may not really exist through her personal experience as an immigrant, first in Israel as  a former USSR and for the second time as a foreigner in Chicago. www.jennyrafalson.com

Dystopia Ideal, Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez 

Join us Saturday, April 17th for a live screening of Come Wash with Me by Kesha Lagniappe, And With These Hands by Farihah Aliyah Shah, and Dystopia Ideal by Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez. Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with artists Kesha Lagniappe, Farihah Shah, and Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 12 pm (CST) / 1 pm (EST). 

Jezabeth is a multidisciplinary maker and educator working with Video, Performance, Photography, Land and Live Plants through Installation. Highly influenced by their hometown of Añasco Puerto Rico, Interested in the fabrication of landscapes, tropical utopias and ownership. Jezabeth’s practice re-examines an ongoing colonial relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico through pockets of family, personal migration pleasure and exhaustion. www.jezabethrocagonzalez.com 

Dis/connected 2020, Juuso Kuivila

Kaleidoscopic spikes, reminiscent of protein formations on certain viruses, infiltrate this photographic essay illustrating a synthesizer improvisation from the beginning of a pandemic. Stark anthropocentric landscapes stand abandoned, and magnetic tape effects suggest fallibility of memory, in hopes that the warnings of this year are not forgotten.

Dis/connected 2020 will screen over IG TV on Dispatch Gallery’s Instagram @dispatch_gallery on April 6th. 

Juuso Kuivila mostly works with still and moving images, with works commonly featuring a wistful, dreamlike atmosphere aided by original music. Kuivila focuses on themes of subjectivity, humanity and temporality, and expresses themselves with photography, writing and musical composition. Interactive installations and art books are some of their other media of interest. With a Bachelor's degree in Culture and Arts, the artist is currently working towards their Master’s in Game Studies at Tampere University, Finland. https://juusokuivila.wordpress.com 

Come Wash with Me, Kesha Lagniappe

The performance is meant to be interactive/participatory and live in that I do laundry by hand and invite the audience to “come wash with me” hence the title. The concept specifically addresses gentrification in the city, displacing/kicking out unwanted bodies and the laundromat.

The concept is what happened to me and what happens to a lot of people that are displaced due to neighborhood gentrification. Sometimes, like with me, it was indirect in that they strip you of your community and resources---particularly the laundromat. This is apparent in many cities across the US in that closure of laundromats equates to gentrification.

Most people like me at the time did not have washer or dryer access in our homes nor could afford one. The laundromat was our only way to clean clothes. To take that away for gourmet restaurants and coffee shops takes away a necessity that indirectly displaces many--forcing us to move out to other places where we can access basic resources.

For almost a year after they shut down my laundromat, I was forced to wash all my laundry by hand in buckets or in my bathtub and line dry. However, strict neighborhood regulations (from the developers gentrifying) fined people for clothing lines because they are "displeasing to the eye." Developers take away the resource then punish you for reverting to more parochial means to get the resource. This is all very classist and usually intersects with being racist especially in my neighborhood where I was typically the only white person using the laundromat amongst many Black people. It's a privilege to have a washer and dryer. So, I ask you, who has the right to clean clothes? Will you come wash with me?

Join us Saturday, April 17th for a live screening of Come Wash with Me by Kesha Lagniappe, And With These Hands by Farihah Aliyah Shah, and Dystopia Ideal by Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez. Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with artists Kesha Lagniappe, Farihah Shah, and Jezabeth Roca Gonzalez via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 12 pm (CST) / 1 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom panel discussion has been recorded. 

Kesha Lagniappe [they/them] was born in Helena, Arkansas in the heart of the Mississippi River Delta. Due to being raised in this conservative region also known as the ‘Bible Belt,’ their work focuses on queer, gendered and classed subjectivity, memory and relationships through and with unseen sensibilities such as soundscapes and alternative materialities such as fiber, performance and found objects. Recently, their work has utilized performance and their own body to convey and conceptualize the ephemeral, temporality, distance, vulnerability, community and longing. They have a BFA from the University of Arkansas in Little Rock and an MA from the American University in Cairo in Gender and Women’s Studies. Lagniappe currently resides in Cairo. lagniappedaily.wordpress.com 

Theology, Lin Jian

Lin Jian’s works are primarily based on personal perceptions and ways of viewing the world. 

In an attempt to understand spirituality and religion, Lin rearranged various scriptures and teachings from different religions and transformed them into basic physical attributes of sounds, and sound waves. The result being, visual sound waves used to depict various religions. Through analysis and comparison, Lin explores the nature of religion to demonstrate a series of mechanized behaviors brought about by religion.

Theology will live stream over IG TV on Dispatch Gallery’s Instagram @dispatch_gallery on April 20th. 

The following reflection is an excerpt Lin Jian wrote on his studies of Theology, modified slightly for clarification:

I cannot understand the spiritual world of people with religious beliefs. I cannot understand the fanatical spiritual sustenance that different religions bring to people. I don't understand how people believe in things that do not exist in any physical property. The only person I knew with religious beliefs in China is my mother. She used to be a Buddhist. Therefore, I have fallen into such a brood since I was a child, but I had no chance to connect with it. Those who have no faith in China account for the majority of the population. But when I first came to Korea, I was impressed by the power of religion. This does not mean that I found faith, but I witnessed countless Christian churches when I lived in Seoul. The huge cross that radiates the cool red light forms part of Seoul's night scene, just like N Seoul Tower or other landmark buildings, but it is very inconspicuous and inappropriate. I also met a lot of fanatical missionaries there. Their enthusiasm is exhausting. I can't stop thinking about what is the power that supports them. What is the nature of religion?

So I started a series of incomplete and unprofessional studies of theology and various religions. Gradually, I realized that different religions are essentially identical in nature,  because of geopolitical relations or civilization. The development and evolution of society divide what is essentially the same religion into many. Every religion has its own doctrine, but in the end, the ultimate goal pursued by every religion is the blissful world after death. Good people have good news after death. When the bad guys die, they must accept endless pain and punishment. It is extremely simple and rude. After many thousands of years, religion has slowly added some other characteristics, becoming a powerful weapon for the ruling class to control the people's thoughts as a weapon for collecting money. The rulers used the name of religion to launch wars one after another in an attempt to expand the territory. Based on personal research, I started this series of works. I intercepted or rearranged the scriptures and teachings in different religions and transformed them into basic physical attributes, sounds, and sound waves, and used visual sound waves to carry out various religions. Analysis and comparison, explore the nature of religion and demonstrate a series of mechanized behaviors brought about by religion.

Systems of Pain/Networks of Resilience (Nebraska) for Camera, Meghan Moe Beitiks

I gather multiple forms of understanding—visual, academic, personal, physical, material – together in my work. I attempt to be conscious of my limits, biases and prejudices within the process, while acknowledging the effect that the perceptions of others have on me. I make space for difference. I do this in order to articulate some ways in which all things (yes, literally all things) are conceptually and ecologically connected.

Research guides the work’s final form. It ends up being video, performance, installation, writing, whatever the process demands. I strive to combine the various realities I encounter into as comprehensive an understanding or embodiment of a single “thing” as I can muster. These “things” have included Neutrinos, The Weather, Processes of Recovery, Apologies and Forgiveness. The most urgent connections for me to articulate are between the human and the non-human, the emotional and the material, the descriptive and the enacted/embodied.

Ultimately I see my work as a series of exchanges of meaning. A reflection on relationships. An acknowledgment both of connection, and the impossibility of true understanding.

Join us Saturday, May 1st for a live screening of Systems of Pain/Networks of Resilience (Nebraska) for Camera by Meghan Moe Beitiks, and it’s not unusual by Wild Actions. 

Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with artists Meghan Moe Beitiks and Wild Actions via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 12 pm (CST) / 1 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom discussion has been recorded. 

Meghan Moe Beitiks is an artist working with associations and dissociations of culture/nature/structure. She analyzes perceptions of ecology through the lenses of site, history, emotions, and her own body in order to produce work that analyzes relationships with the non-human. She was a Fulbright Student Fellow, a recipient of the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, a MacDowell Colony fellow, and an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. She is currently an interdisciplinary Studio Art Lecturer at the University of Florida. www.meghanmoebeitiks.com

One Day We'll Waltz Again, Millicent Kennedy

The origins of this work predate the pandemic but were fundamentally shifted by it. It’s been over 3 years since the last time I danced with my dad, we waltzed to “Rainbow Connection” in the stylings of Kermit. I still think about my dad counting the steps out before we began to waltz, and how much it calmed me in this bittersweet moment. COVID-19 has led to a massive collective loss, which we have been unable to mourn while we live every day in sustained trauma. The loss of so many people is difficult to mourn, especially alone.

In this performance, the artist sifts flour over an area the size of a small dance floor, and dances over an extended period, shifting the flour and creating a drawing using the movements of the dance to reveal the floor below. This drawing installation is made with the steps of a waltz, which is usually performed with a partner.

One Day We’ll Waltz Again is a mourning ritual for the loss of family members and our time with them. But also, a ritual of desire and hope for a future communion.

Millicent Kennedy will perform One Day We’ll Waltz Again over Dispatch Gallery’s Instagram Live @dispatch_gallery on Saturday, April 24th. Time TBA. 

Join us Friday, April 30th for a live screening of Telephone Tango by Grace DeVies and Jeremy Wong followed by a live performance of One Day We’ll Waltz Again by Millicent Kennedy via Zoom and Instagram Live. The performance will begin at 7 pm (CST) / 8 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom performance has been recorded. 

Millicent Kennedy is a Chicago-based artist, curator, and educator. Her art practice utilizes installation, fiber, print, and performance to make work that quotes the troubled histories of materials and enacts new rituals of mourning.

She received her Bachelor's Degree from Northeastern Illinois University and her MFA from Northern Illinois University where she was awarded the Helen Merritt Fellowship. She's received solo exhibitions from SXU Art Gallery, Roman Susan and Parlour and Ramp, as well as site-specific installations with Terrain Exhibitions Biennial, and Purple Window Gallery. She has received artist residencies in Chicago, and Mississippi, and Michigan. 

Kennedy co-curates at Parlour and Ramp Gallery in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago and has served as the Gallery Director at Rockford University, She currently teaches at Evanston Art Center and Lillstreet Art Center. www.millicentkennedy.com

Asphyxia, Plastic. Affective memory and waste.

Asphyxia Credits - Concept: Alina Tofan, Alexandru Claudiu Maxim, Georgiana Vlahbei

Performer: Alina Tofan | Video: Alexandru Claudiu Maxim | Sound-design: Teo Rădulescu

‘Plastic. Affective memory and waste’ is a cultural project developed by a young creative team from Bucharest, Romania, that proposes a foray into the world of plastics. They encourage public dialogue and question practices, representations and uses of plastics both on an individual level and within the socially shared space. https://plasticmemoriesirisipa.ro 

Join us Friday, April 23rd for a live screening of Asphyxia followed by an interview with the Plastic Collective via Zoom and Instagram Live. Time TBA.

Alina Tofan (RO) is a multidisciplinary artist, member of the Time Based Arts group within Arts University Bucharest. Her area of practice explores unique ways of communicating with all the senses. Her goal is to express as many feelings as possible through the body. 

Georgiana Vlahbei (RO) has been engaged in visual documentation in ethnographic/cultural anthropology research for the past 10 years. Her photography journey began in 2014. In 2020, she had her first exhibition of conceptual photography. 

Alexandru Claudiu Maxim (RO) is a video artist from the new Romanian wave, interested in interdisciplinarity. He works both as a visual artist and as a performer, regularly participating in exhibitions. 

Teo Rădulescu (RO) is an architect passionate about the relationship between sound and space. For him, sound determines the rhythm of the city life, influences emotions and thoughts. He questions through his art the missing sounds of a space.

I Am Here For You, Sophia Munic 

I Am Here for You is an ongoing project where I created three sculptures representative of 'hugs' and gave them to participants to film themselves playing with, materializing in three separate short video clips. This project examines how our relationship to physical touch has changed during the covid pandemic, how we are soft with ourselves and others, and how we find comfort amidst how covid 19 limits our ability to (physically) connect to others:

How do we connect with people while we are distanced? During the covid 19 pandemic there are now new parameters for how we interact with one another, heavily limiting physical touch between those we are not quarantining with. For those of us who give and receive comfort through physical touch, it is a time when we must find comfort in other ways while also asking ourselves how we are finding comfort and care for ourselves during this time. To examine this I create three objects, made of two hands, six feet apart, and the phrase I am here for you embellished on its surface. 

For this project I have created three of these objects and sent them to participants, Lucien Vendego (He/Him), Tanya Tran (They/Them), Kyle Willignham (He/Him) and Lee Nelson (He/Him). I have asked them to film themselves interacting with the object, using it as a tool to ruminate on their experiences during quarantine in relation to these questions:

How has our relationship to physical touch changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? 

What is one way you’re finding comfort/care for yourself during COVID?

How are you being there for others that you love during social distancing?

What alternatives to physical touch are you trying to show care?

How are you being soft with yourself and others during this time?

How did you feel interacting with the object?

Sophia Munic (She/They) is a multimedia artist predominantly working in soft sculpture. Their work uses found materials and colorful fabrics to manifest what childhood objects would look like if we were going gendered as a part of our upbringing. Overall their work aims to invite the inner child to come out and play. www.sophiamunic.com 

Light Sleeper, Heavy Dreamer, Suture Blue + royb0t

(performed live at Elastic Arts in Chicago // Feb. 15th 2020)

"this game performance considers the bonds we have with the mediums of our memories. // stepping into fragmented, digital worlds, suture pushes the viewer through visually intricate, haunting, and celestial environments. // in compliment, royb0t drives the tension and release while navigating ambient, frenetic, and cinematic soundscapes."

suture -

"As  a new media artist who weaves between physical and digital forms researching the inherent interconnected relationships of self image— I disagree with many ideas of duality and outdated views of ego.

My aim is to foster effective understanding & communication with oneself  as the most viable ability to connect with other(s) and navigate through increasingly fragmenting environments. Such connection is attained via relatable grounding points that lead to deeper discussions &  shared experiences.

Through animation, game performances, and video art I create ports of relatability that are open for connection."

royb0t - 

"Despite a formal education in Computer Science, I struggle to articulate clearly through programming languages. Instead, expression comes most naturally through audio and visual arts, all self-taught. I perform as royb0t, with output in the styles of Industrial, Drum & Bass and IDM. Visual design is under the moniker bzzrk (an onomatopoeia for the sound of a shorting circuit) emphasizes compression errors, grains and heavy reprocessing often only using iPhone photography apps.

Across both the aural or optic realms, works often explore the relationship (and potential loss) of self within the ever changing landscape of technological advances, constant media consumption and the mirroring of organisms and electronic systems. With influences spanning Digital Hardcore Recordings to Net Art aesthetic, the riotous outcry of the being finds itself often in parallel with the mechanics of nature, production and consumerism.

This bio was modified from an artist statement generator. I also like iCarly."

it’s not unusual, Wild Actions

it’s not unusual is a 7 ½ minute video-capture, which in other times would be a live performance, of one woman shoving others’ words in her mouth. It is a place where embedded belief systems stemming from vague ideas about values, morals, and ethics are used alongside coded language. We take them in, gag on them, and then what? 

While the speed and reach of communication has increased exponentially, its efficacy and our understanding of each other has eroded. Navigating that dustbowl - language snatched up as a weapon to sever connections, tweet-length attention spans, scarce havens for critique and discourse to exist without shaming and canceling, the exponential proliferation of disinformation - is a wicked force on our bodies and psyches. 

Join us Saturday, May 1st for a live screening of Systems of Pain/Networks of Resilience (Nebraska) for Camera by Meghan Moe Beitiks, and it’s not unusual by Wild Actions. 

Following the screening, Dispatch will host a discussion with artists Meghan Moe Beitiks and Wild Actions via Zoom and Instagram Live. The screening will begin at 12 pm (CST) / 1 pm (EST). 

Dispatch Gallery will archive the event on this page once the Zoom discussion has been recorded. 

Wild Actions, a North Carolina-based multidisciplinary performance group, wrestles with obstacles: impossible, everyday, behavioral, and momentary. Since 2016, we have created interactive installations, evening-length performances, and public interventions with non-linear narratives, experimental sound scores, and improvised choreography. We gather all kinds of creators for in-depth collaboration and experimentation, to then be fueled by audiences’ personal experiences. Wild Actions wants audiences to not only have, but access and attend to their agency, intuition, curiosity, and sensory experience. 

WA believes art is the peoples’ and they have a right to experience it in public spaces, traditional venues, and in the most unexpected places. We are committed to the ethical imperative of paying fair wages to contributors, collaborators, and performers, while presenting accessible events with free or low-cost tickets. http://wildactions.org