“A black femme goddess punk, nude and in charge” (TheChart) – How do we resist temptation, how do we slow down, how do we play, how do we survive?
Presented by Arnolfini as part of the Still I Rise expanded programme.
In this immersive solo work, Thomas investigates and embodies resistance, asking: “How do we resist temptation, how do we slow down, how do we play, how do we survive?”
Thomas traverses a multimedia installation, combining structural fragments of environments associated with labor, ritual, and hospitality such as locker rooms, strip clubs, waiting rooms, church pews, and field days.
Investigating forms through which black and brown people hold space for each other, Thomas asks how to carry the multiplicities of being young, gifted, and black – powerfully engaging with the entangled histories of labor, subjugation, and resistance.
Keijaun Thomas
Keijaun Thomas is a New York based artist and current Franklin Furnace Fund Recipient for 2018. Thomas creates live performances and multimedia installations— her work investigates the histories, symbols, and images that construct notions of Black identity within Black personhood. Thomas earned their Masters degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thomas has presented work nationally and internationally in Los Angeles and Palo, Alto, CA; Portland, OR; Portland, ME; Chicago, IL; Saugatuck, MI; Steuben, WI; Boston and Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Miami, FL; and Taipei, Taiwan; Paris, France; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Istanbul, Turkey; Beirut, Lebanon; Saskatchewan and Vancouver, Canada; and the United Kingdom.
Her work centers and focuses on self/communal care in real time and building safer spaces for black and people of color to rethink, rework and reflect on the collective ancestral memory, differences as well as make space for our similarities.
Keijaun Thomas has been nominated for the 2019 ANTI Live Art Prize.
Description of the image at the top of the page: Keijaun Thomas stands looking powerful on top of two small black boxes, each with the symbol for female on them in white. Her arms open wide she is reaching up to the sky and leaning back. Behind her are rocks, cliffs and the sea.
