Katie Cercone

Alien Armageddon, Empathy & The Vine of the Soul

A conversation with Melanie Bonajo

BY KATIE CERCONE

“In terms of plant meditation, I allow plants to be my teachers, they take me to a place of silence and I access portals that are usually only opening with an intensely deep, probably monastery meditation practice”
— Melanie Bonajo

Melanie Bonajo, Night Soil - Economy of Love, 2015, film still courtesy AKINCI

This article is now live over at Art 511 Magazine! This piece was commissioned by Alexandra Arts and first published in the special print edition of Art 511 Mag celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women’s suffrage [funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND] during the Pankhurst in the Park 2018 season. You can download the digital version of the full mag here

Feminism is For EVERYONE

EMINENT DOMAIN OVERTAKES CHELSEA

The EMINENT DOMAIN recap article is now live over at our Pankhurst in the Park 2018 partner ART511 Magazine website

Photo: Elena Kendall-Aranda, site-specific performance, “Quests from the Virtual Age.” Courtesy the Artist

“EMINENT DOMAIN evolved out of Art 511 Mag’s recent partnership with the Manchester, UK-based Alexandra Arts, when this past Spring, we teamed up to produce a limited edition, 74-page full-color print commission celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women’s suffrage (funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND). The edition, available as a free download online here, was made available for purchase during the reception, and features critical essays, interviews and artworks by Marilyn Minter, Narcissister, Melanie Bonajo, Samantha Conlon (Bunny Collective), Go! Push Pops and Anna FC Smith among others. Artists included in the EMINENT DOMAIN show were mostly selected by a competitive open call submission process organized by head curator Katie Cercone.”
— Art 511 Mag

Read the full article here

Women Hold Up Half the Sky: A Look at British Artist Ekua Bayunu

Today, April 14th, 2018, marks the launch of the 8-week interdisciplinary, community-oriented project “Women Hold up Half the Sky” led by Ekua Bayunu, this year’s Artist in Residence (AIR) for Alexandra Arts’ “Pankhurst in the Park”. In connection with the launch our partner Art511 Magazine have published on their site an article about Ekua's life and work by NYC based artist Katie Cercone. Alexandra Arts commissioned this for the Pankhurst in the Park centenary edition of Art511 Mag, which is available at our events and as a free download here

Ekua Bayunu just finished mounting her first solo exhibition at Manchester’s Chuck Gallery. Aptly titled Re:Birth, her show centers around a body of sculptural work reflecting women’s power and draws on aesthetic motifs of her African cultural heritage. After receiving a few rave reviews of her show, she was selected in February to be artist-in-residence in Alexandra Park for the final season of Alexandra Arts’ Pankhurst in the Park Program. Recently, I had the opportunity to connect with the artist personally and dive more deeply into her background and the motivations behind her trans-disciplinary, social-justice oriented creative practice - Katie Cercone 

Read the whole article here

Lasso of Truth NYC

Pop Amazon's Legacy Fatale Leads The March during NYC 21st Suffragette Festival

Pankhurst in the Park 2016 - Legacy Fatale commission ‘Lasso of Truth’ was performed at Grace Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn, 7th May 2016, the same day as our Alexandra Park Spring Showdown. Katie Cercone was there, writing for Whitehot Magazine, read the review here

“To kick off the event at Grace Space May 7th, modern-day Amazons Legacy Fatale and company will begin with a spirited march from Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick to Grace Exhibition Space. Recently back from Manchester, while in the UK the group performed a new work celebrating suffragette herstory for Alexandra Arts’s annual Wonder Woman festival. The Wonder Woman festival is part of the larger, comprehensive initiative of Manchester-based artist Lotte Karlsen to enact community art in Alexandra Park, turf upon which the suffragettes led some of their very first riots and rallies. Legacy Fatale will continue this thread in their work for the NYC-based sister project 21st Suffragettes.  ”
— Katie Cercone, WhiteHot Magazine