PLEASURE PROJECT

VR_001 /// LAUREL ATWELL

March 2021

Pleasure Project represents the first products in an ongoing translation practice of my live performance compositional tools onto the screen. I am attempting to create a 21st-Century Science Fiction Musical-Comedy/Romance as visual collage using a cheap green screen, my New York apartment, longtime collaborators, seemingly worthless objects, and found online ephemera. Within the work, the time continuum is warped and blended with the alchemical charge of overhead lighting and acrylic nails, highlighting the absurd beauty of reality while simultaneously respecting that said reality has surpassed my current understanding of satire. What I have left is the daily attempt to find pleasure and to hold that up as the beacon to find my moral and creative compasses, respectively.

Laurel Atwell is a Bessie nominated movement and healing practitioner. Laurel has been building performances since 2008, supported by residencies with chashama, The Field, Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation, and Movement Research. In 2019, she presented the trio We Wield as part of Gibney Dance's DoublePlus series. Like most of Atwell’s work, We Wield was built from a fascination with how interpersonal relations and non-verbal communication have the potential to break down accepted rules of engagement in order to better support intimate constructions of time. Atwell has co-choreographed and performed with Jessica Cook at MoMA PS1 as well as PAM & Central Park Gallery in Los Angeles. In addition, Laurel performs regularly for other artists including Melanie Maar, Melinda Ring, Milka Djordjevich, Mariangela Lopez, Ursula Eagly, and luciana achugar. As a somatic apothecary, she teaches qi gong and offers supportive energetic activations via reiki, gua sha, and stick + poke tattoos. Atwell is also the curator and producer of Spooky Actions: Materials for Reading, Doing, Being, a project of realizing ideas as materials with others.

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WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR SUN SIGN?

FF_001 /// JESS WILLIAMSON

March 2021

The last year has been one of forced pause while humanity is both literally and spiritually gripped by disease. I feel the collective desire for Healing – both emotionally and physically – very acutely in these times. This collection speaks to some of the ways that we, ambitious humans that we are, try to transcend our conditions and evolve. I curated this collection of books around four themes: healing (both emotional and physical), self-exploration, self-transformation, and expanding one’s own consciousness. I’ve found that these modalities have paved many paths to personal evolution. We all find our way with it, and it looks different for each person. The collection is simultaneously intentional, esoteric, and fun: some of the books are humorous to me while others have merit. I look at this collection lovingly and with some amusement. We try so hard! And mostly, our intentions are pure… 

Jess Williamson is a Texas-born, LA-based singer and songwriter. Her fourth album, Sorceress (released in Spring 2020 on Mexican Summer) delves into spirituality, magic, and the everyday dust and grit of our lives on earth via a deep-hued kaleidoscope of dusty ‘70s cinema, ‘90s country music, and breezy West Coast psychedelia. As another outlet for her interest in the esoteric, Williamson curates an ongoing collection of printed matter and ephemera under the moniker Vibe Management.

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