HAUNTED EXHIBITION

BLOOD RAINBOW FAMILY PRESENTS:

Opening/Performances: 7 pm–12 am Saturday, September 30, 2006 @ DISJECTA eastside Burnside bridge—Portland, Oregon

Since the inception of the narrative the haunted space has served as a backdrop for a range of dark and deep human experience. Similarly, the active and/or passive phenomena of being haunted has been invoked to describe anything from unobtainable desire (i.e. haunted by his/her/its beauty) to skin-crawling visitations. Once a place is labeled “haunted,” it essentially becomes a screen on which to replay the idiosyncrasies of an individual's psychic impulses; haunted spaces lure hapless humans to perceive/find/imagine doors open that normally would be closed. For many, the desire to return to a haunted space, to travel to the deeper recesses of the unconscious, is as persistent as it is incomprehensible. A repeated image, a regular visitation, something that lingers…in short, a guest who intends to stay (albeit remaining just out of the corner of your eye) are all signs that we are haunted.

In the exhibition Haunted, artists working in various combinations of video, installation and performance will construct physical spaces that reflect their perceptions of what it is to be haunted. Expanding upon the form of the mural, Ulrika Andersson presents existential questioning on a grand scale. Brian Wasson examines the passive foregoing of an object of desire using the iconography of the tunnel of love. In the course of marathon performances, Margaret Tedesco offers the viewer a bird’s eye view into hushed, private reconstructions of cinematic narratives. Brian Storts draws from the world of vaudeville, taking a more humorous view of haunted, while Pam Martin and Linda Ford weave in the topical concern of what it is to be watched via surveillance. Jackie Sumell and Liz Cohen’s work provokes a startling revisitation to the not-so-distant past through the use of triggers drawn from our collective personal/political unconscious. The Blood Rainbow Family examines the history of their inanimate commune through ritualistic performance in a surrogate communal space. Conversely, David Johnson presents the American suburban experience as a spectre filled, alienating landscape. These and the other included artists will elaborate on the concept of haunted through a variety of lenses; the viewing of and interaction with the converging installations, videos and performances will present new experiences that are open to viewer interpretation. In addition, the interaction between the various works themselves will combine to create the effect of a mutating haunted house.

Blood Rainbow Family
July 2006