DivineBrick (josie j) makes research-based existentially iconoclastic artwork. A lifetime of re-configuring views, beliefs, self-structure and modeling a research-oriented existence that explores belief and where it stems from, this is where it has lead.

Bass pushing air, creaking, cracking a wooden device called the Basso, to set the bio and molecular rhythm of the space. A device, part bazooka subwoofer speaker, part drum, and part bellowing feedback loop. Supplier of urban noise this wooden sub-woofer will be the splintered connection to indigenous past. A exploration in movement called Corporeal Reformation will occupy the rest of this space. Inner woven reaction to time, space voice and body, will be aided by the pulse of the sub, riding on witnesses inside a WhiteBox as landscape with their collective voices to activate our collective memory.

Trying to reclaim some sort of indigenous or forgotten belief or behavior is close to impossible when these things have been destroyed or co-opted. Where does one turn if their past does not exist to borrow from it? Sometimes the things that the colonizer has stereotyped as “indigenous” become the only symbols on which to connect to, either in act of dissent or in hopes of connection. This will further convolute this already broken system. This semiotics is also the way the colonizers themselves find ways of connecting to more holistic ways of existing. Unearthing resources and the destruction of land not only uproots the indigenous people but also further removes the colonizer from forgotten memories of coexisting, not occupation of this land and its inhabitants (this includes plants and animals).

To add a bit more texture and dimensionality to this night I welcome Mike Meanstreetz (drums) and Z. Vidal (loop effects). Please come bath in this wave of sound, be our landscape that we have forgotten. Share in the collective vocalization. I hope to remember something I forgotten many lives over.

This event is part of the DecolonizeLA series, and was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.