SITE UNSEEN: Post Your Review

Posted by DCA Theater on November 10, 2009 in Site Unseen

Last night the Chicago Cultural Center was transformed by the annual performance event Site Unseen, which featured works by local artists who used audio, performance, spoken word, dance, and media installation to bring visibility to issues presented by disabilities of all kinds.

More than 1,000 people came out to support the participating artists: Mike Ervin and Rahnee Patrick, Judith Harding in collaboration with Still Point Theatre Collective, James Kubie and Katrina Chamberlin in collaboration with Joseph Belknap, Marissa Perel and Madeleine Bailey, Debra Tolchinsky, Unreal-estates (Annette Barbier and Drew Browning) and Project Onward.

“From the Fat Off Our Bones” by James Kubie & Katrina Chamberlin with Joseph Belknap. Photo by Sarah Best.

View more photos from the show by Sarah Best on Flickr®

What did you think about the show? Share your comments here.

She Speaks in Metaphors (I Understand)

Posted by DCA Theater on September 22, 2009 in Site Unseen

© 2009 Julie Laffin, Site Unseen 2009 Curator

This blog was originally posted on www.PlanetThrive.com.

Winged Dead Cyprus Tree © 2008 Julie Laffin. All rights reserved.

Your Fluid Body is Frozen

My doctor (one of them) says my entire left side is jammed. It’s like shrink-wrapped plastic wrap, tight and brittle but it should be like one large, flowing, unified teardrop. It should have coherence and flexibility and it should breathe. I guess this assessment could explain some things: why I feel like I’m constantly falling to the left, why when I get exposed to synthetic fragrances my face goes numb on the left side and not the right, why my left leg and foot often lose all sensation from diesel exhaust exposures no matter how small, why my left arm and leg will start to tremor spontaneously, why my left eye twitches and spasms randomly, why there is constant pain in my left foot and a varicose vein in my left leg. Oh, and I have a mass on the left side of my neck at the carotid artery and am constantly clenching the left side of my jaw. My fluid body on that whole side is frozen. It may in fact, at this very moment, be trying to launch a rebellion.

Going after Stealth Pathogens © 2008 Julie Laffin. All rights reserved.

Keep Your Eyes Off the Snake

Suppose I take a square of beautiful blue paper and tape it to the wall. Then I take a rubber snake and hang it in front of that beautiful blue square. The goal is to focus on the blue area no matter what the snake is doing. That’s my assignment. If someone pulls on the snake I should be still, stay with the blue area and disregard the turbulent and frenetic energy of the snake. She says to me, “Don’t be seduced by the chaos. The place of healing is not chaotic. Try to find the quiet, still place of gratitude”. I try and try and try. Sometimes I can actually muster it.

Most days, finding that place is not so easy and I feel like I’m being forced to watch my health slip away, day by day, moment by moment. It’s become like watching a movie, a slow torturous one at that. Not being seduced by the chaos was never my forte and now that my severe environmental illness is so easily triggered, I have the challenge of not getting emotionally and physically flattened by bizarre physical, sometimes unrelenting, reactions.

Last year I was diagnosed with advanced, neurological Lyme Disease and actually relished in this diagnosis. It seemed there was finally an explanation and possibly even a treatment or cure for a confusing, strange, and prolonged (almost five years) lapse of health. My relief was short-lived when I found out the hard way, that because I am now so severely chemically intolerant, I can not take long term antibiotics. With each trial of antibiotics I lost even greater chunks of the health I had left. So far, I have not been able to recover these long lost parts.

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Bed Series

Posted by DCA Theater on September 18, 2009 in Site Unseen

Submitted by Marissa Perel and Madeleine Bailey, Site Unseen 2009 artists

line drawing

spooning

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Building Seven

Posted by DCA Theater on September 18, 2009 in Site Unseen

© 2009 Julie Laffin

Julie Laffin, the curator of Site Unseen, spent several weeks in Dallas, TX being treated for severe environmental illness. The following article documents her experience at a safe housing complex there.

Bed, Room 713 © 2009 Julie Laffin

I never made it to Snowflake, Arizona this year, a place I love and was hoping to return to. Last year I spent two months in the desert air living among friends there and making art. This year, I spent half of July and half of August in Building Seven, a residential holding tank in Dallas, Texas for the environmentally ill. None of us could live there without several strict rules. No pesticides are used and every resident moving into Building Seven is required to sign a contract agreeing to forgo the following: smoking and pets, scented products, scented detergents in the dedicated laundry room, and any “alterations” to the suites. This last one might seem easy to the non-environmentally ill but many of us are so sensitive we have to foil surfaces, cover them up to make them neutral and seal up every window to create a barrier to some of the things that ail us (and there are plenty in Dallas in the height of summer).

My suite was on the first floor and though I longed for an upper floor unit with tiled walls and floors, 713 was the most neutral for me chemically speaking.  As all the units did, mine came with organic cotton sheets, organic mattress (sans the flame retardants required by law except with a doctor’s order), metal and solid wood furnishings, filtered drinking and shower water, a state of the art HVAC system and free transportation to and from the clinic I was being treated at. Because I was sick for the duration of my stay there, I came to see Building Seven as a kind of dolled up, private hospital room but without the benefit or intrusion of medical personnel.

Bathroom at Night © 2009 Julie Laffin

I arrived at Building Seven by making an emergency landing there after first attempting to stay at Ecology Housing, a community of small ramshackle buildings and trailers featuring communal kitchens and laundry buildings that catered to the chemically and electrically sensitive. (http://www.ehcd.com/websteen/seagoville.htm)

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Clover Morell takes “Shield” to Amsterdam

Posted by DCA Theater on September 16, 2009 in Site Unseen

Site Unseen assistant curator Clover Morell recently performed “Shield,” a piece she co-conceived with curator Julie Laffin, in Amsterdam. Click here to read her blog which chronicles the experience. Here is an excerpt:

“Within my body, there is the story of the performance – a story that has been building in words, poses, gestures, histories, and a relationship between Julie and I around the topic of illness and healing, presence and absence, and transformation. What could I bring to Amsterdam for Julie? She asks for me to find it within myself to heal those around me. In a way, I am already aware that in her belief in me, in her wisdom and trust, she has offered me grace.”

Morell performing “Shield”

Morell and Laffin will collaborate on another piece for the 6th annual Site Unseen. In Remote Intimations Clover will offer tea to audience members while they engage in conversation with Julie via live video feed. Julie, who has curated Site Unseen since its inception, is unable to enter the public sphere due to chronic illness and severe environmental sensitivity.