This workshop by Claire Chambless is part of the Group Exhibition Survival Tools for the Age of Ultra Anxiety held at Culture Lab LIC at Plaxall Gallery. Share on Facebook.

How do the spatial politics of urban environments and institutional spaces within and outside art contexts reinforce systems of oppression? Do the spaces we inhabit influence our sense of self? Can architecture and object placement impact how comfortable we feel? This workshop will use communal movement-based practices to explore the way bodies can work together to shift power relations in public spaces. We will begin with a guided meditation and group consciousness exercise to share diverse perceptions of architectural devices and crowd control objects. We will then move into a movement practice where we collectively use our bodies to explore strategies of anti-authoritarian space making. This workshop is a continuation of work begun in 2019 where the artist borrowed then reconfigured, NYPD crowd control barriers in Brooklyn.

Claire Chambless (b.1989, Houston, TX) is a sculptor whose practice encompasses object-making, photography, video and installation. She received her MFA in Art from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA in 2020 and completed her undergraduate studies in 2012 at Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Her work has been shown in museums, galleries and public spaces, including the the MAK Center Mackey Apartments; Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA; Serious Projects, Los Angeles; TZ Projects, Los Angeles; La MaMa Gallery, New York, NY; Michael David & Co., New York; UCLA’s New Wight Biennial, Los Angeles; among others. She was a 2017-2018 Walthall Fellow, and is the founder of commons, a Los Angeles-based space and knowledge sharing project that organizes exhibitions, performances, screenings and reading groups. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.