Gather Round It
SF Design Week / John McNeil Studio
Curated & produced in collaboration with David Wilson and with John McNeil Studio, this collaborative happening was part of San Francisco Design Week and took place Wednesday June 26, 2019 in Berkeley, CA. The artists and attendees played with light, sound, dye, projection and dance to create a moment of presence, immersion and play.
Each program for the event was RISO printed on colored card stock, as the event took place, black and white photos of the event were automatically printed on purple paper, and guests could choose a moment to include in thier program.
About the artists:
Stephanie Hewett
Stephanie Hewett is a choreographer, movement researcher, performer, and teacher from the Bronx, New York (Lenape territory). She is a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts and has studied at the Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She holds an MFA in Dance from Mills College and was recently on faculty at the College of San Mateo. Her movement-based performance work aims to highlight fluid identity and reimagines the future as a site of rebirth. Her current research entails navigating performance through injury, pleasure frequencies, and excavating ancestral vestiges in the body.
Chris Hamamoto
Chris Hamamoto is a designer, and educator based in Berkeley, CA. He holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and is an assistant professor at California College of the Arts. In addition to teaching, he maintains an independent practice – pursuing his interest in how automation and algorithms effects social relationships and aesthetics – a topic he explores through graphic design and software design and production. He has shown work and lectured internationally, and has been recognized by institutions such as Printed Matter, STA Chicago, the Walker Art Center, Hongik University, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Aiano Nakagawa
Aiano Nakagawa (she/they) is a queer femme dancer, writer, scholar, and educator. Their work lives at the intersection of the body, power, pleasure, and intuition. Aiano is dedicated to the liberation and prosperity of Queer/Trans/Black/Indigenous/Peoples of Color and works with people ranging from 0 – adulthood. Through embodiment education, dance, writing, and gatherings, Aiano supports people in entering the body to find their unique and individual, direct route to power, intuition, and deepest knowing. Once accessed, the potential for healing and transformation is infinite. You can find more about their work through Art for Ourselves.
Andy Puls
Andy Puls is a video artist, analog electronics designer, and composer/musician. He runs the experimental media production studio/workshop, “A Magic Pulsewave Esoteric Electronics” in Richmond, CA, where he produces audio and visual recordings and electronic audiovisual devices, including the recently launched “Melody Oracle” Musical Divination System. In his audiovisual performances, he uses video hardware processing, camera feedback loops, refracted light, and his own electronic audiovisual designs, to uncover the inner-world landscapes existing behind the scan-lines. His focus on live connection to the viewers, and his direct interaction with sound — working both solo, and in collaboration with other live sound artists — makes each performance entirely unique to circumstance.
Jon Sueda
Originally from Hawaii, Sueda has practiced design everywhere from Honolulu to Holland. After earning his MFA in Graphic Design from CalArts in 2002, he was invited to North Carolina State University to serve as a designer in residence, followed by an internship in the Netherlands with Studio Dumbar. In 2004, Sueda founded the design studio Stripe, which specializes in print and exhibition design for art and culture. He is also the co-editor of Task Newsletter, and the co-organizer of AtRandom events. In 2007, Sueda relocated to the San Francisco area where he served as Director of Design at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts for seven years, and is currently the Chair of the MFA Design program at California College of the Arts. Most recently he was selected as a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.
Kristine Vejar
Kristine Vejar is most happy when surrounded by plants, color made by plants, and textiles. She explores her local natural environment for sources of color in the forms of dye and paint, and teaches others how to do so. Therefore bringing a greater understanding or curiosity to our ever present living world. She encourages people to choose natural materials, and to implore design to accept, enhance, and engage with such materials. Limitation is her favorite creative conduit. She is the author of The Modern Natural Dyer and the owner of A Verb for Keeping Warm, a natural dyeing studio and raw-material textile shop in Oakland, California.
contact: mary.banas (at) gmail.com
1981–NOW © YES IS MORE, Mary Banas, specified rights holders. All Rights Reserved.
1981–NOW © YES IS MORE, Mary Banas, specified rights holders. All Rights Reserved.