Communicator Series #14
Tuesday October 28th
7:30pm Doors
8pm Performances
at 2220 Arts+Archives
Free / RSVP
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Join us in ritually restaging the feral haptics of the present with performances by Los Angeles-based artists Vaughn Larsen and Nina Sarnelle. Communicator Series no. 14 is an invitation to reach between the fault lines of collective presence to touch the electric terror of becoming a we… i.e. nostalgia is for nymphos. i.e. let’s vibe. Tuesday October 28th, 7:30pm at Poetic Research Bureau.
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Communicator Series is a platform for queer and trans* artists whose practice is situated in-between, troubling the boundaries between poetry, archive, performance, activism, and collective intimacies. We're here for work that is switchy, vers, and language-curious, that teases the edges of form as a poetic strategy of becoming otherwise. Attempts, failure, and works-in-progress encouraged.
Curated by Emji Saint Spero | ig @homopathetic
Presented in collaboration with Poetic Research Bureau at 2220 Arts + Archives
Sound by jeremy kennedy | ig @table_blue
Video by Gentry McShane | ig @gentryxgx
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ARTISTS
Vaughan Larsen is an artist, community organizer, and LGBTQ+ activist based in Los Angeles. Her practice involves photography, performance, sculpture, and video to express the dynamic, emotive states found within the queer chosen family. She creates images and stages happenings that celebrate and investigate the becoming of her identity as a trans woman.
In 2019, Larsen received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Later that year, she earned First Place in Getty Images’ Creative Bursary Award; first prize in Amsterdam Pride Photo Award’s Unique competition; and named an Emerging Fellow of the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship. Exhibited internationally, Larsen had her first solo museum exhibition in 2024 hosted by the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
vaughanlarsen.com
ig @the.vaughan.show
YT @TheCatmandu1
Nina Sarnelle (they/them) makes research projects, participatory performances, music composition, video, and many experiments in pedagogy and collectivity. They facilitate somatic, improvisational & vocal workshops, including many with Selwa Sweidan under the collaborative project Touch Praxis. Their work explores conditions of neocolonialism, environmental injustice and labor exploitation in strange and intimate ways, often rooted in specific sites like the Port of LA, a former Nike Missile silo turned into a basketball court, or the shifting sands of “Silicon Beach.”
Sarnelle was recently awarded a $75K fellowship from the California Arts Council, a fellowship at Metabolic Studio, and a NYFA Environmental Arts Grant. In 2020, they had a solo video exhibition at the New Museum. They hold a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Their work has been shown at Whitechapel Gallery (London), Hammer Museum (LA), Getty Center (LA), Ballroom Marfa (TX), MoMA (NY), Istanbul Modern (Turkey), Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (Berlin), Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology (Lisbon), Fundacion PROA (Buenos Aires), Black Cube (Denver), Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Recess (NY), UNSW Galleries (Sydney), Project 88 (Mumbai), Kevin Space (Vienna), Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum (Genova), Mwoods (Beijing), Human Resources (LA) and others; and featured in Art Forum, Frieze, Art in America, Huffington Post, SFMoMA, Creators Project, FlashArt and others.