DIY: 2019 – Adriana Disman: The confusing space between

A residential workshop for multi-racial performance people on an island in the English Channel.

Deadline for applications: 2pm, Thursday 20 June
This DIY is supported by Arthouse Jersey

Project summary

“No single idea can make sense on its own, but no two ideas can be grasped simultaneously. The mixed-race person embodies this. With too many heritages or too few, too white or not white enough, the mixed-race person grows up to see the self as something strange and shifting…shaped around a lack… [and] must forge their identity in the confusing space between.” -Will Harris, Mixed-Race Superman

This DIY will bring together 4-8 multi-racial (or mixed-race, dual-heritage, or myriad other words that you might prefer) performance art people. Over a residential period of 5 days (20-25 October 2019) on Jersey Island in the Channel between England and France, in a crotch of colonialism, we will share our experiences. Not working towards sameness, of which we will likely find very little, but rather sitting with foundational difference will be our practice.

Embodying contradiction, taking fluidity as a chameleonic resistance tactic, we will assume nothing and strive to hold the complexity of each other’s experiences. Engaging the mind and the physical body simultaneously: we will talk and walk the island paths, write and breathe the sea air, give each other workshops and cook for each other, querying identity together. Not focused on creating an art product but engaging our art practices towards grappling with our positionalities. Because race is one fucked up and hilarious ride and hearing each other’s tactics towards survival might make it a little less nauseating.

ArtHouse Jersey will be the base for the residency, providing accommodation. A travel bursary of up to £100 will be available for each artist and some meals will be provided.

How to apply

This workshop is open to live artists and those invested in live art (including organizers, writers, documentarians, etc.) who identify as multi-racial. It’s absolutely NOT necessary that your work relates explicitly to or forefronts your racial identity (in fact, this is one of the topics to explore together—the ways in which we are or are not asked to account for our racial make-ups in relation to our work). Please note that this DIY is not funded through money specifically denoted as “for people of colour” or “diversity actions” as it welcomes people who don’t fulfil or identify to that criteria (for example, white-passing people who don’t wish to take public funds for people of colour who do not pass). It is by no means limited to or focused on participants who are part white but is for multi-racial people of all swirls and strangenesses.

Please fill out the form at the linl below. You are also welcome to answer all of the application questions in a video application shot simply on a computer if that is more accessible for you. Please keep this video under 10 minutes, upload it to Vimeo or Youtube (do not send the actual file!) and email with heading “SUBMISSION DIY 2019” to [email protected] by deadline. Please also fill out the application form but with simply your name, email address, contact or telephone number and equal opps details.

Any questions or concerns, please contact Adriana

Dates, times and location

Dates: 20 – 25 October 2019
Location: ArtHouse Jersey, accommodation will be covered and stipends of maximum £100 for travel will be available.

The artist

Adriana Disman is a queer Czech-Iraqi performance art maker and writer, born on the stolen lands often called Canada. Since 2010, her solo work has been presented in numerous festivals and galleries across Canada, the United States, Europe, and India. Her practice searches for minor modes of resistance as she seeks liberation – an interdependent and as yet un-imagined state – through refusing to adhere to the logics of power. A sensitive facilitator of performance, Disman strives to support each participant on their particular journey instead of working towards a singular idea. She has lead independent performance workshops as well as guest/teaching at McGill University, U of Toronto, Concordia University, and Abrons Art Centre, amongst others. She previously ran The School of Making Thinking, an artist’s residency invested in experimental pedagogy (NYC). She was also an artistic co-ordinator of RATS9 Gallerie, a queer art space (Montreal). www.adrianadisman.com

For questions about this DIY, please contact the artist.