Saturday, Nov 8, 3-6PM
FCCW: 3053 Rosslyn St. LA CA 90065
Info on our space here
Max capacity: 15
Open to ages 15+
Free
As part of Silvi Naçi’s AIR project, skin to sky: radical play as resistance, queering kites is an invitation to translate the collective co-authored cyanotypes, made in previous workshops, into kites to fly. Translation is a central piece of Silvi’s practice and flows throughout the residency –– specifically how knowledge crosses borders from body to body, from land to land, skin to sky, transferring ways of being-with. The body in translation holds great capacity for flowing between states, and learning how to trust the body in flight, in flow, has been a central question in this project.
For Silvi, kites carry a distinct place in their memory — having been raised in dictatorship in Albania, kites carry an association with military surveillance and symbolize childhood play accessible only to boys. This is an opportunity to reclaim kite flying for play and for queers, and to weave together traditional craft practices with a community-based method of image-making. The silk photographs created as a group, will shape-shift into the skin of the kites.
This translation shifts away from gendered, violent, colonial modes of being, and reveals a space for possibilities of reciprocity, relation, and radical play. In this workshop, we will collectively learn how to make and fly kites, with technical fabrication support by Yaeun Stevie Choi. We intend queering kites to be an accessible repository for all kinds of translations and ways of being-with to emerge. So if this speaks to you, please sign up!
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Silvi Naçi is a queer Albanian educator, artist, researcher, and writer working between Albania and Tongva and Chumash territory, colonized as Los Angeles. Their praxis engages the image and its politics across photography, performance, moving-image, text, weaving, drawing, and installation. Their work examines how the marginalized body is affected by an oppressive state, the subtle and violent ways that migration results from colonialism, and how processes of decolonization affect and reshape a people, the body, language, and possibilities of gender identity.
Naçi holds a dual BFA in Fine Arts & Graphic Design from Suffolk University and an MFA in Photography & Media from California Institute of the Arts. They have exhibited works at Manifesta 14 Prishtina, XK; National Gallery of Art, Tirana, AL; The National Gallery of Kosovo, XK; Grand Hotel, Kosovo, XK; Other Places Art Fair, LA; Greater LA MFA Exhibition, LA; and is a recipient of the Tim Disney Excellence in Storytelling Prize and the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Travel Grant. Their writing on art criticism has been published in Artsy, East of Borneo, Contemporary Art Review LA, X-TRA, Big Red & Shiny, NKA Journal for Contemporary African Art, and Hunter Fashion Magazine. Naçi has participated in residency at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA); Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (Berlin, Germany); Elsewhere Museum and Residency (Greensboro, NC); Évora NAU (Évora, Portugal); Vermont Studio Center (VT); perfocraZe International Artist Residency (Kumasi, Ghana), and the Feminist Center for Creative Work residency (Los Angeles, CA). Naçi is a doctoral student in the Global Studies department at UCI. Find more info on their work at silverprojects.co or follow them on Instagram @silvi.naci.