Day of Leisure is a one-day group show of time-based art. This year’s edition consists of adventurous video, sound, and performance-based works activating our spaces inside and out, including several never before seen in Chicago. The material and psychic detritus of consumer society instigate and cede to embodied, poetic responses, forming elastic durations of recognition and disorientation.

Featuring work from Maia Chao and Fred Schmidt-Arenales, Kate In, Swenson/Ihns, TAITAI +/-/x/÷Tina, and Whitney Johnson (AKA Matchess).

Please RSVP at the link below. Capacity is limited. We will send those who RSVP a door code for entry. We can’t guarantee day-of admission otherwise.

LINK: https://leisure.place/2025/day-of-leisure/

The show is free, however voluntary donations are appreciated. Art is labor that deserves fair compensation, and we can pay artists more with your generous contributions. Refreshments and a light communal dinner will be available in our garden.

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Kate In is a multimedia artist and educator based in Chicago, primarily working in sound. Her work involves experimentation with sound technologies, sound design for documentaries, animations, celluloid films, electroacoustic music composition, and participatory, non-hierarchical collaboration. She holds an MA in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and is an engineer and studio manager at Experimental Sound Studio, a non-profit dedicated to the creative exploration of sound.

Maia Chao is an artist who works collaboratively in social practice, film, and performance. Chao has presented commissioned works for The Shed, MoMA Education, Mural Arts (Philadelphia), and most recently the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (DC). She is co-creator of Look at Art. Get Paid. at the RISD Museum. She has completed residencies at Pioneer Works, Queer|Art, and the Fine Arts Work Center, among others. In 2022, she was named a Pew Fellow and in 2023, she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Based in Philadelphia, Chao is a member of the art collective and DIY space, Vox Populi Gallery. She has taught at RISD, University of Pennsylvania, Moore College of Art and Design, and is currently full time faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Fred Schmidt-Arenales is an artist and filmmaker. His projects attempt to bring awareness to unconscious processes on the individual and group level. He has presented films, installations, and performances internationally at venues including SculptureCenter and Abrons Arts Center, (New York), Links Hall (Chicago), The Darling Foundry (Montreal), LightBox and The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Artspace (New Haven), The Museum of Fine Arts and FotoFest (Houston), Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien (Graz), and Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna). His recent film Committee of Six is an official selection of the 2022-23 Architecture and Design Film Festival and was awarded a jury prize for best film at the 2023 Onion City Experimental Film Festival.

Brett Swenson makes videos and objects that explore the felt mechanics of seeing and perceiving. He’s especially interested in the sticky relationship between surfaces and interiors, and in how these elements can physically rework each other to create new and relationally expressive forms. Brett is based in Chicago, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. He earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of Chicago. He is currently a Lecturer in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Kai Ihns is a poet and filmmaker based in Chicago. She’s the author of sundaey (Propeller Books, 2020) as well as several pamphlets, and a dissertation called Aspect Choreography. Formerly an editor at Chicago Review, she currently works as an Advisory Poetry Editor for The Paris Review, and edits The Year, a chapbook press.

TAITAI x Tina Wang uses movement research that leads to object (film photo and ceramics) making which is then used as materials in installations. She makes perverse dioramas with organic materials in all states of their hydration to emphasize the malleability, humor, and fragility of the human condition. She/it obtained her BA in dance and psychology at Washington University, and Certificate in contemporary dance performance at the Peridance Capezio Center. She furthered her movement training with other dance (American Dance Festival), yoga asana (Iyengar), and fitness (Strongman) modalities. Recently, she obtained her MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Chicago.

Whitney Johnson is an artist working in sound and music, wondering about the strange ways our bodies and minds receive what we hear. She composes, performs, and installs multi-channel sound with viola, sine waves, Max/MSP, organ, synthesizers, vocalization, tape looping, and field recording. Her latest albums, Hav and Stena (2024, Drag City) embody alter egos to join the cult of Hermaphroditus in Cypriot and Greek antiquity. In tandem with her practice, she is Assistant Professor of Art and Technology/Sound Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Official Website

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Tags: Brett Swenson, Day of Leisure, Estlin Usher, Fred Schmidt-Arenales, Humboldt Park, Kate In, leisure, Maia Chao, Micah Schippa-Wildfong, TAITAI +/-/x/÷Tina, Whitney Johnson, X. A. Li