Artistic Research Unit:

COUNTER NARRATIVE SOCIETY (CNS)

Lead Artist: Mabel Negrete
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info_at_thecounternarrativesociety_dot_org

CNS: Contributors and Friends

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Fieldworks, Survival Kits and Conversation Pieces Confronting the Invisible Punishing Machine…

Nov. 2010 – Present

In the fall the Society came to a revelation. We realized that even when the invisible punishing machine (def.) is everywhere, creeping into our bodies, lives and spaces, like a colossal architectural nightmare; we feel the need to challenge this machine in the most intimate and modest ways. In other words, whether we are living in the most adverse or the most comfortable conditions, we can’t give up. From this perspective, we have embarked on a yearlong multifaceted discursive work that seeks to unravel this contemporary condition and use this material for our final thesis project.

We have begun to facilitate an interactive and dialogical work called The Weight I Carry with Me. In part, this is a fieldwork that involves Mabel Negrete bearing the stories of those imprisoned on her back while she initiates one-on-one guided conversations with random participants in formal as well as informal locations. Each of these conversations has been directed to reflect on our dreams and nightmares. They  combine to create  a poetic and philosophical narrative about what we are witnessing in the USA when invisible punishment, incarceration and torture have become the main means for solving social issues.

The Weight I Carry with Me began in November 2010 and has led conversations with a pool of people acquainted with the Society. One group of participants comes from the Society’s group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances in Cambridge, MA and in San Francisco, CA.  Another group comes from the gallery Lost Coast Culture Machine which has organized the exhibition HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS in Fort Bragg, CA, (December 3^rd, 2010 through January 30^th, 2011).

So far in the process of these conversations, we are realizing that as the artist and participants share their personal stories, they are also exchanging information, coping mechanisms, new ideas for interrogative remedies and an understanding of historical traumas, state violence, human cruelty, and the injustice that weaves throughout the history of this country.

As the project continues we expect the weight we carry to grow and change in shape.

So stay tuned!

GLACIERS_UNDER OUR SKIN
An Immersive Performance Workshop
Tackling Domination, Assimilation and Racism in an age of Mass Imprisonment

Pilot Workshop | 5.4.2010
By the Counter Narrative Society
Mabel Negrete with Mary Ann Brooks + Joan Jones’ Performance Class + John Hulsey

Glaciers _ Under Our Skin uses immersive performance and social parody/critique to create as science-fiction deviant society, the Double-Skinned Nation. Participants are invited to become members and instigate a basic critique about race-class making institutions that have kept the America society torn apart and segregated in pernicious ways. … continues…