BODYWARP
a solo exhibition by Indira Allegra
January 6 - February 10, 2018
Opening Reception January 6, 2018, 6-8pm
**additional programing below**
Warp is the vertical thread held under tension on a loom, making the act of weaving possible. BODYWARP, is a solo exhibition by Indira Allegra at The Alice Gallery, exploring weaving as performance requiring a unique receptivity to tensions extant in political and emotional spaces. BODYWARP marks the launch of a multi-year exploration - of looms as frames through which the weaver becomes the warp and is held under tension, performing a series of site-specific interventions using her body. Like the accumulation of memory in cloth, in BODYWARP, looms and other tools of the weaver’s craft become organs of memory, pulling the artist’s body into an intimate choreography between maker, tool and the narrative of a place.
Indira Allegra works with tension as creative material. The tension between intimacy and violence and tensions within the body all exist as materials stretched to their limits - like threads - pulled taught by the human hand. Using weaving as a methodology, she explores how these threads can be woven - through sculpture, installation and text/ile performance - creating interventions that respond to political and emotional space.
a solo exhibition by Indira Allegra
January 6 - February 10, 2018
Opening Reception January 6, 2018, 6-8pm
**additional programing below**
Warp is the vertical thread held under tension on a loom, making the act of weaving possible. BODYWARP, is a solo exhibition by Indira Allegra at The Alice Gallery, exploring weaving as performance requiring a unique receptivity to tensions extant in political and emotional spaces. BODYWARP marks the launch of a multi-year exploration - of looms as frames through which the weaver becomes the warp and is held under tension, performing a series of site-specific interventions using her body. Like the accumulation of memory in cloth, in BODYWARP, looms and other tools of the weaver’s craft become organs of memory, pulling the artist’s body into an intimate choreography between maker, tool and the narrative of a place.
Indira Allegra works with tension as creative material. The tension between intimacy and violence and tensions within the body all exist as materials stretched to their limits - like threads - pulled taught by the human hand. Using weaving as a methodology, she explores how these threads can be woven - through sculpture, installation and text/ile performance - creating interventions that respond to political and emotional space.
Allegra is a recipient of the Oakland Individual Artist and Queer Cultural Center grants and has been honored with the Jackson Literary Award, Lambda Literary Fellowship and received support from the Windgate Fellowship Award administered by The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design. The Windgate is awarded to artists who represent the future of contemporary craft as determined by an international panel of curators working with the Center for Craft and Design. Allegra’s work has been featured on BBC Radio 3, Surface Design Magazine and will be featured in the Spring 2018 issue of Art Journal. Her commissions include works for SFMOMA, de Young Museum, The Wattis Institute, City of Oakland, SFJAZZ Poetry Festival and the National Queer Arts Festival. She has screened at festivals such as MIX NYC, Hannover LGBT Festival, Bologna Lesbian Film Festival and Outfest Fusion.
Allegra’s writing has been widely anthologized, she has contributed works to Cream City Review, HYSTERIA Magazine, make/shift Magazine, Sinister Wisdom Journal and Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art and Thought among others. Indira is a former Dr. and Mrs. Ella Tag Lecturer at East Carolina University and has been a visiting artist at the University of Oregon and Southern Denmark University. She has completed residencies at The Banff Centre in Canada, Ponderosa Center in Stolzenhagen, Takt in Berlin, Headlands Center for the Arts and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. She is a KQED ‘Woman to Watch’ and 2018 Art + Process + Ideas Visiting Artist at Mills College. indiraallegra.com and on instagram @indiraallegra
Curatorial Essay by Kemi Adeyemi
Gallery Guide by Carlos Chaurand
Additional programming:
January 8th 1:00-2:00 pm
Woven Account: An Artist Talk by Indira Allegra
North Seattle College Art Gallery
January 9th 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Intervention: Tension as Creative Material
A Conversation with Indira Allegra and Anida Yoeu Ali
Moderated by Thea Q. Tagle
UW Bothell: Discovery Hall 061
January 11th 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
A Conversation with Indira Allegra and Rezina Habtemariam
Moderated by Molly Mac
Seattle University: The Hedreen Gallery
January 12th 8pm
BODYWARP: Performance and Conversation open to the public
The Alice Gallery
