DISCODAZE // Side A: Look under the ground, glitter is pouring from the ugly holes 

Artists: Nicole Fraser-Herron, Jonn Herschend, Jaime C. Knight, and Justin Nagle.
Curators: Fiona Ball, Naz Cuguoglu, Yomna Osman, Orly Vermes
Dates: February 22 - April 26, 2019
Gallery Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 4-7PM
Venue: PLAySPACE Gallery, 141 Hubbell Street, San Francisco, California

We try to remember our first encounter with glitter. All we remember is excess. She bought a tube of silver powder glitter. To mask the unwanted, the abject. Camaraderie. Remember the galaxy of stars in her domestic space? Debauchery. Finding the undercommons. Glitter to confuse, to create temporary autonomous zones. The underground—Look under the ground, glitter is pouring from the ugly holes. Silent resistance. It creates a movement, and the floor below our feet shakes, listen to the strong bass of that electronic music. Bright and loud. It is sticky and disgusting—it is a contradiction, a critique. It is hard to clean, it got everywhere, infecting spaces and bodies. The sparkly dust is resilient. Like playtime has no end. Her aunt’s walls were white with colorful glitter. Bonkers. An incurable plague to wreak havoc on her mental state. Do not mind us, we are only trying to find ways to glow in the dark times. Rebellion. Riot. Revolution. Adults did not mind, but we did. The abnormal ones of the society—the narrative that is suppressed. A spurious gesture. Think about her mom’s nail polish. Like that, we are all superfluous—found families. An entropy. Bedlam. What we mean is that it creates temporary blindness for the big brother—and it is in that millisecond that we run away. And we prefer not to.

PS9 Programming: DISCODAZE//All that glitters is not gold

For the 2019 programming of PLAySPACE Gallery, we intend to focus on the theme of “Discotheque.” Approaching the gallery space as a metaphorical dance floor on which the CCA community can come together to share their works through exhibitions and public programming. Inspired by the saying, “all that glitters is not gold” the gallery will be stripped of its precarity, with one semester dedicated to glitter and the other to gold. The concept of “Discotheque” will be fundamental for creating an accessible and open space while allowing opportunities for process-based interventions. The exhibition will function as a space for conversation, dialogue, and exchange while creating possibilities for interdisciplinary collaborations between individuals. Our programming will investigate the potential of artistic endeavors to make a change in a polarized society, while creating powerful experiences in a non-traditional art space. “Discotheque” will facilitate a space for the audience to move their bodies around, explore, and question: What can be learnt from holding urgent conversations in spaces of joy?

Installation Images:
(by Nicole Fraser-Herron)

Opening Images:
(by Nicholas Bruno)

Public Programming // Black Glitter Disco Bombs: The Discotheque as Celebration of Recessed Joy in Temporary Autonomous Zones

The exhilaration of the mysterious and rebellious energy of night is one dimension the discotheque offers up for those who remain hungry. Emerging as the bacchanalian counterworld to the Apollonian strictures of day, it demolishes capitalism’s time-order and collapses the many into a unified cosmic throb. The discotheque seduces the subject with trance and hypnotizes with the convincing charms of fractal energies in song, dance and intoxicant. Those who participate in the nocturnal hour invoke the cauldron and drink in the moonlight, remixing alchemically the fixtures of the day world in a potent new tantra—a vernacular brought alive underground by temporary autonomous zones of ecstatic joy. This is the dark wave that replenishes life through decomposition. This is a contact zone with the silent ground of being itself.

This workshop will make use of a curated playlist representative of this aesthetic order and invite participants to enter into the counterworld of black glitter disco bombs to access the vitality of subversive joy through a writing workshop while connecting with the performance of dance in alternative community space. Bring your black glitter, goth uniforms, dancing shoes, writing gear and other improvised materials for this workshop and join us in reinventing the gallery as alternative compositional praxis space and musicological consciousness lab.

Sean Negus is an Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts where he teaches in the Writing & Literature Program. In addition, he is a Lecturer of English at San Francisco State University.

Public Programming // Gathering Space: A Conversation on Convening in the Bay Area Arts and Queer Scenes at the Wattis Institute

Centered around the question “What does it take to create and maintain physical, artistic, and queer spaces in the Bay Area in 2019?” this panel addresses the characteristics of an inclusive space for artists and queer people. Moderated by Yomna Osman, the discussion considers approaches to fostering and stewarding inclusive spaces for convening, today, in 2019. 

This event is co-hosted by PLAySPACE and organized by Yomna Osman in conjunction with To Know Herself, the CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice Class of 2019 exhibition.

Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo is an artist, arts educator, activist, storyteller, and curator who lives and works in Oakland, California. Branfman-Verissimo’s work is informed by her commitment to craft and community, engagement with society, and interests in storytelling and cultural geography. Branfman-Verissimo has been an active member of the Oakland-based artist collective, CTRL+SHFT. 

Amy Sueyoshi is the associate dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.Sueyoshi is a trained historian specializing in sexuality, gender, and race. Her publications and lectures focus on issues regarding race and sexuality such as cross-dressing, pornography, and marriage equality.