Image: Raymond Pinto, Shrine, 2020, video still, digital video, color, sound, 4:07 min.
Performance Studies M.A. Candidate Raymond Pinto will perform in Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) on Friday, December 18, 2020 at 7pm EST. This performance is being hosted by Participants After Dark and will include open captioning.
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) combines research and performance—specifically drawing from archives and movement study—to enact processes of memory and commemoration around Black and sexually dissident experiences, past and present. The project takes two major figures, Assotto Saint (born Les Cayes, Haiti, 1957—died, New York, US, 1994) and Rotimi Fani-Kayode (born Nigeria 1955—died London, UK, 1989) as a starting point, and seeks to present an alternative art, literature, and performance history. The project is organized by Serubiri Moses and performed by Raymond Pinto, and includes research by both.
Assotto Saint and Rotimi Fani-Kayode were friends. They met in New York in the early 1980s. They exchanged letters, which have been archived at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. We know that Fani-Kayode photographed Saint, and that Saint went to London to perform an experimental theater work. Their friendship conjures meanings of solidarity across the Atlantic. The emphasis on Haitian Vodou, and Ifa Divination in each of their practices alerts us to their quotidian practice and wish for survival.
Untitled (Unintelligible ██████ ██████) follows the online event, Shrine: DJ Set, Poetry Reading, and Public Discussion, held in July 2020, which brought together curators and artists to celebrate Saint and Fani-Kayode. The speakers included: Raymond Pinto, Pamela Sneed, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Kojo Abudu, and the event was moderated by Serubiri Moses.
PARTICIPANT AFTER DARK is a virtual performance, screening, and event space launched by PARTICIPANT INC in October 2020. The site hosts artist projects commissioned specifically for the AFTER DARK web platform and remote viewing. PARTICIPANT invited artist Glen Fogel to design and develop AFTER DARK. Artists will work with Fogel through the Fall/Spring 2020-21 season, inhabiting the site and fully modifying it for their projects' specific needs. AFTER DARK is conceived of as a blank slate, removing as much institutional framework as possible. The site will only present current projects, and will often go ’dark’ in between events.