Participating artists: JAX, Hamsa Fae, erika, Jun!

Curated by Jun!yi Min for Project [BLANK] IN 2024

Location: Bread and Salt Gallery, San Diego

Material Intimacies is a one-night performance art gathering that invites viewers to contemplate the ephemeral edges between the self and the collective body.

Artist Bios
Hamsa Fae (she/her) is a trans-Vietnamese woman and interdisciplinary artist who is native to Los Angeles. She comes from a rich lineage of mystics and healers, and has integrated such identities into her work. Hamsa’s artistic practice uses body and memory as medium for exploring the Asian American diaspora, ecological reverence, and queerness. Her process calls upon her poetry to re-narrate dreamscapes through performance. Her poetry book, Blood Frequency, was awarded by C&R Press and the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network in 2022. This work along with her recent performance, “Homework”, debuted at the Mingei International Museum to audiences in 2023.

erika researches practices and states of <con/tending with> through the construction of {experimental} experiences and trace encounters. in surfacing the un/bounds of the body, they investigate the we(ight) of being alive.

JAX is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, CA. 
My inspiration comes from following my MTDNA line to the Mitochondrial Eve, and unpacking the grief stored and transferred from the womb and body of the mothers before me. I use synthetic braiding hair along with Black coded items to create installations that incorporate my own performances, using lighting, sound, dance and action.I think of them as sets or stages that also present a subject and background for my video making, as well as supporting my sculptural and printed matter practice. I am interested in theatricality and the innate theatricality of Blackness; obsessed with exaggeration, layering and grandness, which both show up in the way I display and contextualize my work.Extremely long hair, dramatic lighting as well as presenting myself as an extension of the installation in ways that compromise my own mobility, are necessary repeating themes.It is important  that I am visible in the work, though my presence is often obscured.It is also important that I do the most. (using AAVE terms). To take up space, encroach on the space and build a nest as if I’d always been there. I am an alumni at UC Berkeley, where I received my B.A in Art Practice, African American Studies and Creative Writing. I am  currently attending UC San Diego as a MFA candidate for Visual Arts.

Documented by Beck Haberstroh, naomi nadreau, and Robbie Bui