Release Party: “The World’s Worst: A Guide to the Portsmouth Sinfonia”

Sobercove Press invites you to a party❣️

On May 26th from 8-10PM CST, join us via Lumpen Radio's twitch stream to celebrate the official release of "The World's Worst: A Guide to the Portsmouth Sinfonia." The book, edited by Chris Reeves and Aaron Walker and published by Soberscove is a collection of ephemera, anecdotes, and archival material on England's Portsmouth Sinfonia, an ensemble of art students and loose musicians who, in 1970, formed a classical orchestra with the restriction being that one must not have familiarity with their given musical instrument. Although retiring in 1980 (after a decade of wild public performances in which they, through their sheer inability, butchered the popular classics) the Sinfonia's spirit of catharsis through collective play and joyful arts mobilization lives on. "The World's Worst Book Release" is a variety show guided by the Sinfonia's pervasive spirit, featuring over 35 performers, karaoke singers, (non-)musicians, poets, dancers, jokers, artists, talkies, and texts, para-texts, commercials, gestures, and overall reminders of the effervescence of playing joyfully. Hosted by Aaron Walker, Chris Reeves, and Jesse Malmed. With contributions from, amongst others: Lori Felker, Erin Hayden, Andy Hall, Kirsten Leenaars, Cathy Hsiao, Li Ming Hu, Hope Esser, Hannah B Higgins, Mark Booth, Mike Lopez

Watch/Listen here: http://lumpenradio.com/?fbclid=IwAR2OgbzFAVbDlnve-PWooG8TcsrBEep7ZjkyXmreZMTv9wUq9IGiZ1IUdZE

Watch the video Sounds of Music, 2020, a collaboration by Andy Hall and Kirsten Leenaars here:

Imaginary Homelands Video Project: Open Call

Imaginary Homelands, video still 2018

Imaginary Homelands with Kirsten Leenaars

This new documentary project by artist Kirsten Leenaars, structured as a series of video portraits across the US, traces stories of belonging and loneliness. Sign up to participate here.

6018North seeks participants for an interactive documentary project with artist Kirsten Leenaars. Please sign up below and the artist will contact you to set up a time for an interview!

Participants will be part of a recorded Zoom.us event wherein Leenaars asks individuals:

“Can you describe your own face from memory?” This will be the first question in a longer shared conversation about community, belonging and family histories.

Imaginary Homelands is a new documentary project by artist Kirsten Leenaars structured as a series of video portraits across the US and traces stories of belonging and loneliness. What does it mean to be a citizen? What does community mean to you? Notions of identity, belonging and familial histories are uncovered through this project. Each individual interview will start with the question: can you describe your face from memory?

These video portraits will be shared with each participant and posted online as part of the Imaginary Homelands project.

To participate fill out the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YUwDSl33_Pq_Cv5m1162nkElAy4UeKAEJ7h0mC3j9mE/viewform?edit_requested=true

Museum of Contemporary Art Virtual Studio Visit: Kirsten Leenaars Tue, May 12, 2020, noon –12:30 pm

Still from Kirsten Leenaars, The Broadcast,,

This is a virtual event on Instagram Live. To join, tune into the MCA's Instagram page, at noon CST. Visit the official Instagram for The Broadcast including all one-minute episodes prior to the conversation.

Chicago artist Kirsten Leenaars uses collaborative techniques to create artworks that investigate our media landscape and encourage criticality. Join Leenaars to as she discusses her artistic practice and the latest evolution in her video-based work The Broadcast in conversation with MCA Interim Senior Curator January Parkos Arnall.

This virtual studio visit at the MCA is organized by Interim Senior Curator January Parkos Arnall with the Performance and Public Practice team.

For more information: https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2020/05/Virtual-Studio-Visit-Kirsten-Leenaars?event_header_module%5Bcurrent_date%5D=2020-05-12T12%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&event_header_module%5Bid%5D=5ea1a74f6fe3d004fb8b101b

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kirsten Leenaars is an interdisciplinary video artist based in Chicago. Various forms of performance, theater, and documentary strategies make up the threads that run through her work. She engages with individuals and communities to create participatory video and performance work. Her work oscillates between fiction and documentation, reinterprets personal stories and reimagines everyday realities through shared authorship, staging and improvisation.

Leenaars examines how we relate to others and explores how new forms of relating can be created through the production of an artwork itself. Recent projects include The Broadcast (2019), a video project for the Broad Museum in East Lansing considering truth and distortion in public address and media representations; Present Tense (2019), a multichannel video work, commissioned by Illinois Humanities, in which young men and women reflect on their lived experiences of the current justice system and prison-industrial complex and (Re)Housing the American Dream (2015–ongoing), a multi-year performative documentary project with American-born and refugee youth commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee.

Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, at venues including the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City; MAI, Montreal; the District of Columbia Arts Center, Washington DC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Glass Curtain Gallery, Threewalls, Gallery 400, and 6018North, Chicago; Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Detroit; Printed Matter, Inc., New York; the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. Leenaars has received multiple grants from the Any Warhol Foundation; The Mondrian Fund; cultural support grants from the Dutch Consulate in New York, Milwaukee Art Board Production Grant and Fonds BKVB. She currently is an associate professor in the Department of Contemporary Practices and the performance department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.