Embodied Homescapes
Embodied Homescapes
Exhibition featuring four national artists
On View
June 9 - July 28, 2023
Exhibition Details
"Embodied Homescapes" is a contemporary art exhibition featuring the works of Hagudeza Rullán-Fantauzzi, Jaclyn Jacunski, Crystal Ann Brown, and Leila Ghasempor, exploring the complex and intimate relationship between home, identity, and place. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the ways in which home is embodied, experienced, and negotiated by individuals and communities, and how it intersects with broader social, cultural, and political forces.
Press
Exhibition Statement
Embodied Homescapes" is a contemporary art exhibition that seeks to engage viewers in an exploration of how individuals and communities embody, experience, and negotiate their relationship with home within intricate socio-cultural contexts. This exhibition delves into the profound ways in which home intersects with broader social, cultural, and political forces, inviting critical reflections on the affective and symbolic power of home.
The term "Embodied Homescapes" encapsulates the notion that home extends beyond a mere physical space or abstract concept. Instead, it emphasizes the intimate and visceral nature of the relationship between home and the body, emphasizing how home is experienced, embodied, and expressed in diverse ways. It recognizes that home is deeply intertwined with larger issues of identity, belonging, and social justice.
Within the exhibition, artists offer unique perspectives on the multifaceted nature of home. Hagudeza Rullán-Fantauzzi's short film Despues de las Cenizas, influenced by their dance background, intricately explores the visceral and intimate relationship between home and self. Through wild and expressive movements in the home environment, the film captures the negotiation of emotions and experiences, contrasting with the more formal and restrained behavior in the outside world.
Jaclyn Jacunski's site-specific installation From Here provides a critical examination of the gentrification of home spaces. By exposing the embodied dynamics of place-making and displacement, Jacunski brings attention to the socio-political implications that transform communities and reshape their homes. Her work invites viewers to question the power dynamics at play and the implications of these changes.
Leila Ghasempor's public engagement photography series Because offers a deeply personal and nuanced exploration of home. By foregrounding the diverse ways in which individuals and communities negotiate their relationship to home within complex socio-cultural contexts, Ghasempor's photography invites viewers to consider the multifaceted nature of home experiences. Her images create a space for contemplation, shedding light on the intricate interplay between personal narratives and larger social structures.
Crystal Ann Brown's cyanotype quilt from her Interior Space series presents viewers with an opportunity to reconsider the familiar and discover the extraordinary within the ordinary. Through the utilization of alternative photography styles on textiles, Brown meticulously transforms everyday objects into thought-provoking symbols. Her work encourages contemplation of the meanings we attach to the spaces we inhabit and offers a fresh perspective on the aesthetics of home.
Viewers are encouraged to reflect upon the narrative and ever-changing nature of home. This exhibition serves as a reminder of the impermanence and fluidity of our sense of belonging, urging us to critically examine the complex and intimate relationship between home and identity. It fosters an appreciation for the ways in which place shapes the self and the body, promoting a nuanced and intersectional understanding of the multifaceted dynamics at play within the concept of home.
On view from June 9 - July 28, 2023
Installation Views
Installation photos will be coming soon.
Opening Reception Photos
Photography is by Grand Rapids photographer Bud Kibby
About the Artists
Hagudeza Rullán-Fantauzzi
Hagudeza Rullán-Fantauzzi (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines their contemporary ballet and choreographic training with film, projection, and installation-based art. Hagudeza considers topics of gender, race, and sexuality while confronting the social constructs built upon the foundation of colonization and white supremacy. Their work is informed by their experiences as a Trans Non-Binary Afro-Boricua; utilizing their journey within these identities to tell stories and spark conversations that are often unspoken.
Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Hagudeza moved to Phildadelphia at a young age. They received a scholarship to attend Philadelphia Dance Theater where they had the opportunity to train within different techniques and perform works by various teachers and choreographers, whose works have been seen with the likes of Joffrey Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Complexions, BalletX, and more. During these formative years, Hagudeza was able to expand their choreographic voice through creating original works as well as attending the National Choreography Intensive. They received the Jonathan Phelps Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in Contemporary Dance from Regional Dance America. At the age of 18, Hagudeza received their first contract as a professional ballet dancer at Festival Ballet Providence. While here, they were able to perform in contemporary and classical ballets while also being commissioned to create and choreograph two original works. Shortly after, they then joined Cincinnati Ballet’s second company where they also performed in ballets and choreographed a work for the second company.
Hagudeza has returned to Philadelphia where they have been a guest artist with Opera Philadelphia, Anne-Marie Mulgrew and Dancers, Drexel University, and Philadelphia Dance Theater. During this time they have created new works in collaboration with dancers from Philadelphia Ballet, Boston Ballet, and the Brooklyn Center for the Arts. They have also showcased their work in various ways through online channels, exhibition shows, and galleries. Most recently, they have received the Art Works Grant - a grant that highlights work designed to connect, build, and transform spaces and narratives that break down barriers through open access and inclusion, from the Forman Arts Initiative and Philadelphia Foundation for 2021 and 2022. Hagudeza plans to continue expanding upon their interdisciplinary artistic journey through film, projection mapping, installation art, and choreography.
Jaclyn Jacunski
Jaclyn Jacunski (she/her/hers/they) is an interdisciplinary artist who exhibits both locally and nationally. She works at the School of the Art Institute as the Director of Civic Engagement and Faculty in the Graduate Division.
She earned her MFA from SAIC and BFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and she has taught at SAIC and Harrington College of Design. Her practice stems from involvement in social and political causes and the search to find understanding in political controversies that surround the land and community acts of resistance.
Jacunski was a BOLT artist-in-residence at the Chicago Artists Coalition, and she has exhibited at the Institutes of Contemporary Art in both Portland and Baltimore. Her work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and Hyperallergic.
Jaclyn's work is driven by political controversies that surround land, communities, and acts of resistance. By framing evidence of those acts, her work re-contextualizes how they manifest in public spaces and neighborhood landscapes. Through her practice, she engages with resistance against powerful cultural systems such as gentrification, environmental threats, and state violence that exists in urban spaces. Rearranging found objects, news images, and architectural elements, her current work explores controversies in neighborhoods while considering the impact on an individual. She employs interdisciplinary practices but is defined by printmaking’s populist ethic of democratic distribution.
Crystal Ann Brown
Crystal Ann Brown (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist currently working in Buckhannon, West Virginia. In 2012 she earned her MFA in sculpture and expanded practice from Ohio University School of Art, earned her BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design, and is currently working on her PhD from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Arts. Her work acknowledges and sometimes romanticizes the under-appreciated aspects of mothering and everyday life through the use of textiles, sculpture, time-based media, social practice and drawing.
Crystal is also the founder and director of The Howns Den: A Nomadic + Domestic Exhibition Space, which works to bring new ways of viewing contemporary art to her community. Brown is currently a visiting assistant professor of art at West Virginia Wesleyan College and is the director of the Sleeth Gallery. When she is not teaching she is mothering her two children, making art and sometimes running but always dreaming.
Leila Ghasempor
Leila Ghasempor (she/her) is a Kurdish-Iranian performance artist whose work draws from her experiences growing up amid the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) when her family was displaced. She makes collective performances reference universal and culturally specific symbols of human pain, loss, and displacement. Ghasempor’s practice is educational. Each of her projects draws attention to a traumatic history of marginalized people or focuses on a specific issue that she confronts in society no matter where they are happening. Ghasempor rewards her audience with information and awareness.
Ghasempor is the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, including the Enrichment Scholarship and Graduate Dean Professional Development Award (twice) from SAIC, Harvey and Alwayne Gunderson Art Scholarship (twice), and Research and Creative Scholarship from the University of South Dakota, Robert Ralph Ford Memorial Art Scholarship, Lykins Family Art Scholarship, Underwood-Alger Scholarship from Parkland College. In addition, Ghasempor’s works have been featured in six Performance Festivals, three solo exhibitions, and over 20 group exhibitions in the U.S, Spain, and France. Also, her works are in permanent collections of Parkland College, The University of South Dakota, Heartland Humane Society, Vermillion Cultural Association, and the Technical University of Valencia.