Moving Image Guests
FLYING BLIND, Raven Woman Monet Clark Interviewed by Chicken Woman Linda Mary Montano
Performance art icon Linda Mary Montano conducted an Art/Life interview of eco-feminist artist Monet Clark on Zoom in October of 2021, during Monet's prolonged recovery from a relapse of the neuro-inflammatory disease ME/CFS and Environmental Illness. Topics include: Illness as Kundalini awakening, misogyny in the medical establishment, female Hollywood film tropes, the Völva, busting the Madonna/whore complex, the feminine principal, familial decolonization, holistic theory, in depth eco-feminist ideologies and more! It was recorded from opposite coasts with Linda in upstate NY and Monet in a remote town in the arid, windy California desert. The interview's audio was captured by a cell phone connection as Zoom visuals went in and out. The subsequent visual gaps Monet later filled with clips of her performance based photographic and video works and works of the other female artists discussed, to further elucidate the ideas presented.
Credits: This piece is dedicated to late great video artist Dale Hoyt 1961- 2022
Works by Monet Clark in order of appearance: Rise of Raven Woman, work in progress 2021-2022 / Convulsive Stripper, 1992 / NOW, A Video Art Ritual, a 10 screen video installation collaboration with John Sanborn, 2018. Courtesy of the artists / Bunny Girl, 2016 / Performance In Nature series, 2014-2015 / Femme Fauna series in progress (for the Rise of the Earth Garden and Raven Woman project), 2022 / Poisoning/Phoenix Performance Documents series, 2001/2007-2008 / Ritual For A Living Future, 2021. Courtesy of the artist
Other artist's works presented: Karen Finley / End Violence Against Women / End White Supremacy / Honor Unpaid Labor. Courtesy of the artist
Penny Slinger / Metamorphosis / Vagina Dentada / Heavy Lifting 2 Nurtura. Courtesy of the artist
Linda Mary Montano / NURSE! NURSE! Courtesy of the artist
Jennifer Locke / Spells III (Tree, Candle, Levitation, Moonstone). Courtesy of the artist
Special thanks to Brad Yip for assistance capturing the interview, the subsequent audio/visual sync, and other editing technical assistance.
Art/Life Performance by Linda Mary Montano and Monet Clark
Edited by Monet Clark, 2022 / All Rights Reserved
Monet Clark is an eco-feminist and performance based video and photographic artist, curator, and professional psychic. Her wryly humorous performance characters and costumes are inspired by subculture, pop-culture, superheroes, marginalized groups, history, and more. Her works address sexual stereotypes, objectification, cultural taboos, ritual, and nature’s sentience, and draw upon her experience with disability and enviromental illness. They examine connections between misogyny, domination and mistrust of nature, disrespect of animals, and climate change. Monet sees her work in the art-world and as an intuitive, both as countering to patriarchal cultural biases. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and then Northern California in a mixed-race family, and was educated at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute, where she earned her BFA. She exhibits internationally.
Moyka River Offering / A collaborative performance ritual by Nicole Garneau and Darya Apakhonchich / Moyka River Embankment, St. Petersburg, Russia
Anastasia Eschenko was a 24-year-old PhD student at St. Petersburg State University in the History Department. She was in a romantic relationship with one of her professors. On the night of 9 November, 2019, Anastasia was shot and killed by her lover. After he murdered her, he dismembered her. While attempting to dispose of her body parts in the Moyka river, he fell in the river and had to be rescued, at which point evidence of his crime was discovered and he confessed. People who knew Anastasia say she was quiet, sweet, and a brilliant scholar.
Special thanks to:
Рëбра Евы / Eve's Ribs, a human rights project dedicated to gender issues, in particular – gender discrimination and violence towards women. CEC ArtsLink, for supporting Nicole Garneau with a Back Apartment Residency in Saint Petersburg, November-December 2019.
Jean Marie Casbarian, the identifying taste of particular waters
Memory as Practice lies in the reinterpretation of memories and the loss and longing that occurs in the process of trying to reconstruct them. In my attempts to interrogate the source of my own memory, I listen for the gaps, sometimes leaving them be as fragments. Other times, I might fill them in with the possibility of illusion and fiction, questioning the philosophy and physics of time and space. I make no distinction between my life and my artistic practice. The two intersect and collide, eventually landing in a place of remembrance through direct experience. It’s during these more subtle moments that the memories ricochet back, dissolving into the hallucinations of something barely recognized.
Eliza Swann, Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga splices together archival recordings of women discussing their initiations into nature based religions with found and new footage. The video takes viewers through an auditory initiation with witches who, through the use of their magic, aim to create a just and sustainable world.
Eliza Swann links: website / The Golden Dome School / IG
Mónica Ferreras de La Maza, C.A.E (cuerpo, alma y espiritu)
Mónica says: “For this video I took as a starting point the Trinity concept of body, soul and spirit to compose the whole. Three women that could well be the same person, represent each one of these aspects. Each woman performs an activity to the point of obsession. And although they share the same space, they show a lack of communication between themselves and, furthermore, they do not seem to be aware of one another.
Quintín Rivera Toro, At 19 hrs
At 19 hrs. Performance, poetry and reflection take the global quarantine that we are going through as its motivation and draws its name from COVID 19, with each video lasting around 19 minutes. The group of 20 videos takes place between March 31 and April 19, 2020. Faced with the desperation of producing instead of consuming media content, every night, at 7:00 PM., it was performed live through Facebook; an original piece of video performance followed by readings of varied poetry or literature. This gave rise to reflections of a critical, social and political nature, seeking to raise the voice and indignation of the population of Puerto Rico, before its oppressive and corrupt reality while also generating ideologies of emotional positivism in the face of the uncertainty of the pandemic. Each performance began with the artist opening his shirt and showing the “positive" symbol, as he himself was a COVID 19 patient.
Jennifer Zackin, I have a Dream
Video Jennifer Zackin / Music: One Nation by Tito La Rosa with Mary Youngblood / Speech: I Have Dream by Martin Luther King Jr.
Jennifer says: "‘I have a Dream’ is a stop action video of a Despacho I created while living in Cusco, Peru in 2004. In this Traditional Andean Ritual Offering I am asking for peace and justice. Martin Luther King JR is featured chanting a few lines as a mantra/prayer from his famous speech I HAVE A DREAM. My friend Tito La Rosa is featured playing ONE NATION with Mary Youngblood.