Links Hall: an evening of ACRE Performance is the first show in an ongoing partnership between ACRE and Links Hall. Exploring the formation of intimate relationships between bodies and language via feedback, this evening of new and evolving work by four Chicago-based artists summons epic dimensions of history, nature, and the divine into a singular space of light and darkness, gesture and sound.

An evening of ACRE Performance includes work by 2015 ACRE Residency alumni, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Luis Mejico, Amina Ross, and Maryam Taghavi. The partnership between Links Hall and ACRE provides the opportunity for artists to further the research, development and presentation of new work started at the residency in a Chicago venue dedicated to the performing arts. This performance is part of IN>TIME performance art festival*.

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KIAM MARCELO JUNIO (preferred gender pronoun: “they/their/them”) is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist creating work through photography, video, installation, performance, and hybrid forms. Their research and art practice centers around queer identities, Philippine history and the Filipino diaspora, American imperialism, the politics of visibility, and social justice through collaborative processes and healing modalities. Kiam served seven years in the US Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. They were born in the Philippines, and have lived in the U.S., Japan, and Spain.

More information about Kiam Marcelo Junio can be found at www.kiam-marcelo-junio.com

LUIS MEJICO is an artist based in Chicago. Utilizing facets that form the basis for social bonds such as intimacy, empathy, and trust, Luis Mejico integrates structures of social relationships directly into the parameters of his work. He has performed and exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, Zhou Brothers Art Center, The Oak Park Art League, The Uptown Arts Center, and Jan Brandt Gallery, among others. He is currently seeking his BFA at SAIC (2017).

More information about Luis Mejico can be found at www.luismejico.com

twinskin is a collaborative project by Joelle Mercedes and Amina Ross. “Twin skin” colloquially refers to the contours left behind after the birth of twins. They would like to tuck away in this skin-sheath for a bit, there is sanctuary in this site of the underbelly. twinskin’s love of text, color, material and sound articulate a longing, a strangeness, a place between the skin one shows the world and the body that one inhabits.

More information about Amina Ross can be found at www.aminaross.com
More information about Joelle Mercedes can be found at
www.soundcloud.com/diablo-cojuelos

MARYAM TAGHAVI is an Iranian-Canadian artist and curator. Her work ranges from performance to installation, video, and photography. She received her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and is currently an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited and performed in Canada, Iran, United States, and Mexico and her art works have appeared in FUSE magazine and FADO Performance publication.

More information about Maryam Taghavi can be found at www.vimeo.com/user13680236

JENNIFER L. MEFFORD is a Chicago-based curator committed to the support of artists creating interdisciplinary, time-based work. Jennifer was a 2015 curatorial fellow with Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival and currently serves on the curatorial board of ACRE Projects. In 2011 she supported the launch of RADAR L.A., an international contemporary theater festival in downtown Los Angeles and has also served as the Performing Arts Manager at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans.

More information about Jennifer Mefford can be found at www.jennifermefford.com

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) was founded in 2010 with the ambition to provide the arts community with an affordable, cooperative, and dialogue-oriented residency program. The residency itself takes place each summer in rural southwest Wisconsin and brings together artists from across disciplines and levels of experience to create a regenerative community of cultural producers. Over the course of the following year ACRE endeavors to further support its residents by providing venues for exhibitions, idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

More information about ACRE can be found at www.acreresidency.org

LINKS HALL encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development and presentation of new work in the performing arts. Since 1978, Links (a 501(c)3 organization) has incubated performing artists through its residency programs, artist-curated festivals, cabaret and performance series, co-presentations with self-producing artists, low-cost space rentals, direct grants to artists, workshop programs, apprentice producer program, fiscal sponsorship program, and as one of 72 presenting and visual arts partners in the National Performance Network. Links Hall has provided research, development and performance opportunities for nearly 10,000 artists and welcomes an average of 6,000 audience members per year. Our programming provides a fail-safe environment where both artists and audiences can take equal risk.

More information about Links Hall can be found at www.linkshall.org

ACRE and Links Hall have partnered to offer scholarships available to performance artists who are granted admission to the residency. ACRE’s two-tiered programming structure supports emerging artist through their residency program in rural Wisconsin, and subsequently provides all residents with exhibition opportunities in Chicago during the year.
www.acreresidency.org/announcing-the-new-links-hall-performance-scholarship-for-2015-acre-residents

* The city of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) host the IN>TIME performance art festival, featuring both international and local artists exhibiting in 15 diverse venues across the city. Organized by SAIC faculty member and Graduate Coordinator Mark Jeffery, the festival showcases a diverse sampling of performance work from January 29th-March 4th, 2016.

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Tags: ACRE Projects, Amina Ross, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Link Hall, Luis Mejico, Maryam Taghavi