THE PIECE
At some unknown point, the geological activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone of the Pacific Northwest will trigger large tsunamis that will devastate the region, which is already suffering from droughts and fires caused by climate change. The impact on vulnerable communities will be staggering and longer-term issues with nuclear and toxic afterlives will be a certainty. How do we live with this and other past/current/future catastrophes?
Responding to these circumstances, this experimental performance uses sound/music that relates to water and geological activity, language pulled from climate/geosciences research, oral histories, and risk management systems, alongside the human ability to comprehend (and not) form the backbone of this work.
With sound/music by Anthony Vine and Erato Kremmyda; performers including Beth Griffith.
THE ARTIST
Jeanine Oleson is a research-based visual artist/performance director/writer who often brings narrative and physical tools together in stagings, performance-driven video/films, and sculptures that are often objects for use in stagings. She makes sets with a sculptor’s eye and writes performances with an interest in sensory experience, often working with music and voice in experimental ways. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Rutgers University. Oleson has exhibited and performed at venues including: The Kitchen, Cubitt Gallery, London; Hammer Museum, LA; Commonwealth & Council, LA; Coreana Museum, Seoul; SculptureCenter, NY; New Museum, NY; Beta-Local, San Juan, PR; Socrates Sculpture Park, NY. Oleson has been in residence at the American Academy in Rome, Macdowell Colony, Hammer Museum, New Museum, Smack Mellon Studio Program and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Oleson also published three books: “What?” and “The Greater New York Smudge Cleanse” both in 2012, and “Conduct Matters,” published by Dancing Foxes Press in Spring 2020. She is also a lead collaborator since 2013 on a participatory project, Photo Requests from Solitary that provides images to people held in solitary confinement in US prisons. Oleson teaches at Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.