Project for Empty Space’s Feminist FUTURES Fellow Alyssa Alexander proudly presents Sonic Womb: Leaving Gender on the Dance Floor, a two-part exhibition series at PES FUTURES (128 Baxter Street) in Chinatown from April 23rd to June 7th and June 18th to August 16th. A reception will be held on April 23rd from 6 PM EST to 8 PM EST for the unveiling of Part One: Our Fêtes by Billy.
Sonic Womb seeks to replicate the subterranean refuge of both the mythological underwater kingdom of Drexciya and the underground clubs of 1970’s New York City within two site-specific installations by Billy and Jesús Hillario-Reyes. The first installation by Billy utilizes sumi ink drawings, floor projections featuring The Sawf Sisters (Jackie, Ziggy & Tai) and paper sculpture to explore disco ball theory - the bending and refracting of time and memory – while examining how various members of the vogue and ballroom scenes interact with and express their gender identity. The sumi ink drawings stretch across the walls, expressing emotive and reactive sweeping gestures of movement that electrify the space encircling the testimonials of exhibition participants Taylor Alexis Smith, Jacquelyn Batten, Riley Marc Jacobs, NYC Prince Evan Versace, Lamaj Dumure-Versailles, and Legendary Yummy Lanvin. Nowhere does gender stretch, dissolve, and slip like on the dance floors of queer clubs and ballrooms. “A sanctuary for queer liberation,” as asserted by Sable Elyse Smith in their literary work Ecstatic Resilience, the club – in all its damp, thumping, exuberance – is a site of freedom for those who have the audacity to exist.
Curator Alyssa Alexander explores the auditory and speculative genius of Detroit techno pioneers, James Stinson and Gerald Donald, and walks viewers through the ways in which queer nightlife emulates a protective vessel for diverse expression and celebrates Black cultural identity toward futurity as an embodiment of Afro-futurism. “As the culminating exhibition of my fellowship I am beyond excited to be activating the PES Futures space with installations centered on futurity and liberation by way of queer nightlife. Both artists have brought such unique perspectives to the ever-evolving conversation of queer identity.” - says Alexander on the two part exhibition.
About Alyssa Alexander | alyssa-alexander.squarespace.com
Alyssa Alexander is an independent curator and arts administrator based in Brooklyn, NY. With a background in journalism and critical writing, she is currently building a curatorial practice and pursuing more in-depth cultural and art-historical research that centers artists of African descent. She is dedicated to working with emerging artists and institutions to cultivate a more accessible and equitable creative economy. Most recently, she was awarded the Inaugural Feminist Futures Curatorial Fellowship from Project For Empty Space.
About Billy | itsjustbilly.com
Billy is a mixed-media visual artist, tattooist, and dancer/choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY with an MFA from Pratt Institute(2024). Billy makes large-scale drawings that involve movement of the body, projection, and the inclusion of their surrounding community & friends. Movement is not contained in a box, so they use Drawing as an expanded medium using line and paper/collage to express gestures that stretch across surfaces and boundaries to the wall and floor. Billy translates with a loose drawing hand, the charismatic aura of the individual and reveres them as cosmopolitan icons.
About The Feminist FUTURES Fellowship
This comprehensive fellowship program is designed to amplify the voices of emerging curators dedicated to feminist perspectives in the contemporary art landscape but also to provide acrucial safe space for creative practitioners of all gender identities who are interested in Intersectional Feminist thought. It serves as a platform for productive and critical intersectional dialogue, fostering catharsis, camaraderie, and education within the artistic community. While the Feminist FUTURES Fellowship, which was previously known as the Feminist Incubator, remains artist-centric, it embraces the idea of multicentricity and room for new thought and experimentation within the intersectional framework. Because intersectional feminism is an ever-evolving practice, so should the architecture of a feminist-oriented program. In this recalibrated context, the FI creates space for new curatorial visions and new artistic practices.
*Project for Empty Space considers ‘feminism’ to be an ever-evolving framework. At this moment, we consider the works of a variety of feminist communities across the Global South and/or Intersectional practices. Feminism is not bound by gender; rather, it is a practice of movement toward equity across communities and identities.