EVENT, ARTIST TALK
ray ferreira’s An echo wails, whispers an undulating pattern: Video, Artist Talk, and Reception
Friday, Jul 12, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Location: Schlosser Media Wall
Part of Open Worlds
Exploring the connections between queerness, embodiment, and speculative fiction, this video installation looks at bodies as sources of labor power, their ideological construction, and the possibilities granted by history and indeterminate futures. Remixing time and space, artist ray ferreira uses poetic statements and blunt ramblings as she ponders how her body is situated in the world. The ocean, both metaphorically and historically, becomes a space she floats, sinks, and dances in. With a dark blue, wavy ocean animated like a gif and an electronic dance beat in the background, ray vocalizes her thoughts through a non-human, alien/cyborg voice further delving into the land of an other. The words spoken are influenced by a mixture of cultures—like ray herself, who is a queer, Black, Latina—speaking to various audiences who may not understand every aspect.
On Friday, July 12, we will present An echo wails, whispers an undulating pattern (12 mins) on loop in the Museum’s Schlosser Media Wall. As part of the programming, we will host an artist talk with ray ferreira moderated by artist-writer Daniella Brito at 7:00 p.m. This talk will explore the intersections of queer embodiment and speculative imagination. ray will also discuss her upbringing in Corona, Queens. From 8:00–10:00 p.m., there will be a reception with refreshments and music by DJ Aguapanela Mami.
As part of this event and during the weekend of July 13–14, ray ferreira’s videos benthicbitchfantasy and aspiralcnk33pth3grlsss will also be screening on loop in the Fox Amphitheater during regular Museum hours.
Biographies:
ray ferreira (she/her) is a performer of sorts whose work explores the relationship between materiality and ideology; both of which are made and remade in bodies—my body. Born in Corona, Queens, she has been an artist in residence at Institute for Electronic Arts and Emerge NYC. ferreira has exhibited and performed across North America at various institutions including Owens Art Gallery, Carleton University Art Gallery, Performance Space New York, MoMA PS1, Queens Museum, Centro de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, and Brooklyn Museum. ray’s work has also been published as part of Poet’s Together: A Poets’ Tour of Little Island Reader, Passenger Pigeon Press; First Made Into Language, Southern Exposure; Femmescapes zine. She received an MFA from Hunter College and currently lives in Brooklyn in a small dollhouse.
Daniella Brito (they/them) is a Dominican-American writer, curator, and artist from New York City. Trained in art history, Brito draws from visual cultural studies, queer theory, and decolonial aesthetics within their writing to document queer performance histories. Their writing has appeared in publications like The Kitchen Magazine, Hyperallergic, Contemporary And, Document Journal, Them, and elsewhere. They have written exhibition catalogs for institutions like The Studio Museum in Harlem, Harper’s Gallery, and Deli Gallery. Brito has held curatorial and programmatic roles at Art Labour Archives (Berlin), Decad (Berlin), The Knockdown Center (New York), El Museo Del Barrio (New York), and more. They have curated programs and presented work at spaces including e-flux Screening Room, The Kitchen, Fridman Gallery, Canal Projects, and NEW INC. They were the 2022-2023 LAB Research Residency Fellow at The Kitchen.
Aguapanela Mami is a Queens-born-and-bred DJ. Her Colombian heritage and punk roots translate through her sets, spinning reggaeton, cumbia, punk, and electronic music.