I served as a co-curator for the return of the beloved Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards in Seattle, WA, featuring in-progress and short-form experimental dance and theatre pieces by national and international artists from throughout the Pacific Northwest region. 

Photo Archive

From 2012-2023, I co-curated and co-programmed Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s annual, internationally renowned Time-Based Art Festival (TBA) in Portland, Oregon. In my roles as a program director and then as co-artistic director & curator with PICA, I organized exhibitions and performances for TBA with local, national, and international artists across experimental visual art, performance, dance, theatre, sound, music, film/video, and social practice, as well as new initiatives in community engagement; public programs; and visiting scholarship/writing.

Image Archive

From Canadian choreographers Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson, Make Banana Cry is a critical and destabilizing dance performance that questions Asian stereotypes while examining the transmission of cultural identity. In a subversive runway presentation featuring a parade of body politics, Make Banana Cry troubles the Western gaze. Attempting to shake off the weight of representation and fetishization, six artists critique, parody, and protest against the clichés of “Asian-ness.” Confronting the tension between their cultural identities and stereotypes, the work is an irreverent happening that contemplates the problematics of “universal” Western popular culture while drawing on the intersectional backgrounds of each of the performers. Mixing the codes of couture and contemporary art, and straddling spectacles of consumption and entertainment, the piece is an impressive demonstration of physicality, an unrelenting examination of Western prejudice, and an ingenious show of humor and wit.

Image + Web Archive

Alongside Jaleesa Johnston, Rana San, and Emily Zimmerman, I co-curated an extensive, bi-annual survey exhibition of new and recent work by contemporary artists from the Pacific Northwest. Part of the 2023 return of Seattle’s famed Bumbershoot Festival.

Image Archive

With Felisha Ledesma, I co-curated Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound, a multifaceted program featuring 15+ international, national, and local artists spanning six live performances; five newly commissioned multichannel compositions; four film/video works at the intersection of sound and moving image; and one month of artist residencies, community workshops, and public engagements. Featuring Adee Roberson, Alison O’Daniel, bone lattice, Crystal Quartez, Hiro Kone, Kite & Robbie Wing, Lucy Liyou, Nivhek, Nyokabi Kariũki, Reese Bowes, Saint Abdullah, Sholeh Asgary, Synth Library Portland, Takashi Makino, Tomoko Sauvage.

Image Archive

Part of a long-term documentary project by interdisciplinary artist Carlos Motta–in collaboration with artists Heldáy de la Cruz, Julio Selgado, and Edna Vázquez–We Got Each Other’s Back was a three-part, multichannel video installation featuring portraits of queer artists in the United States who are or have been openly undocumented, and who are producing work to denounce historic and present-day broken US immigration policies. The project demonstrated how the intersections of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, race, and economic background define the environment of marginalization and discrimination to which immigrants are subjected, while challenging mainstream media narratives of immigration and sexuality by presenting, nuanced, real-life stories of living at the margins of the legal system. The program included production of new films, a large-scale exhibition within a uniquely designed and installed environment for video viewing and live performances, a mural of an alternative historical timeline of immigration, and an online symposium with undocumented writers and poets, guest curated by Yosimar Reyes.

By Gordon Hall
Hesse Flatow Gallery, New York, NY

Archive of Live Online Reading from Publication

I contributed a creative/poetic response to one of Hall’s sculptures for the book Circling the Square: Words from END OF DAY, a companion publication to Hall’s solo exhibition at Hesse Flatow Gallery in New York City.

Image Archive

I co-curated No Human Involved at PICA with Kat Salas and Matilda Bickers of STROLL PDX, a harm reduction, education, and outreach group run by and for sex workers. The multifaceted program spoke to dehumanizing sociopolitical systems and cultural conditions through the artistic voices and viewpoints of sex workers themselves. Far from just a show “about” sex work, and intentionally subverting or rejecting chichéd romanticized or pitiable representations, No Human Involved complicated narratives of sex work that critically examine and engage–and deconstruct and reconstruct–dynamics of emotion, labor, landscape, language, humor, family, identity, and community. It sought to honor the history, spirit, and tradition of STROLL PDX’s annual sex workers’ art show and other grassroots exhibitions of, by, and for sex workers and their communities, while expanding the Portland project’s platform and possibilities through PICA’s space, visibility, and resources. No Human Involved took many forms, including an artist residency; international open-call exhibition resulting in dozens of pieces by 15 featured artists across mediums; a public symposium, learning library, and archival display; and an independent publishing initiative in collaboration with Rose Nordin of OOMK/Rabbits Road Press in London.

by Gordon Hall
Image Archive
Exhibition Guide w/ curatorial writing

With Kristan Kennedy, I co-curated a solo exhibition of newly commissioned sculptures and performance scores by the writer and sculptor Gordon Hall for Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in Summer 2019.

Introductory Essay by me page 3

With Kristan Kennedy and Spencer Byrne-Seres at PICA, I co-edited and co-published a collection of writings by writer and sculptor Gordon Hall. The book served as a companion to Hall’s solo exhibition of newly commissioned sculptures and performance scores, which Kennedy and I co-curated at PICA in Summer 2019.