Join us for a celebration of Oceanic, Portal with a DJ set by Gavilán Rayna Russom and a drinks reception.

micha cárdenas, Gerald Casel, Ian Costello, Cynthia Ling Lee, Susana Ruiz, and Huy Truong

How do we move through the losses of people, places, and even our own capacities due to COVID-19 and the climate crisis? Oceanic, Portal responds to this question and to the urgent need to build new queer and trans BIPOC worlds of disability justice and liberation.

Through photography, 3D video created with Lidar scanners, and an augmented reality app, Oceanic, Portal presents images of three dancers as ghosts moving through time and space. They appear at Natural Bridges Beach (on Amah Mutsun land colonized as Santa Cruz, California), and at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (on land the Lenape named Manahatta). Queer crip Chicanx feminist Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004), whose writings inform this project, evoked millennia of geological transformation at Natural Bridges in her early efforts to include trans women in women of color feminism. The dancers’ movements are also inspired by scholar Tiffany Lethabo King’s theorization of shoals as disrupters to colonial systems of knowledge.

Recent floods in California portend the imminent rise of sea levels while acidification has already destroyed 95% of the kelp that once populated the Northern Californian coast. As we mourn our losses, here and elsewhere, Oceanic, Portal proposes that we make space for healing and transformation, centering one another’s access needs as we build worlds together.

Download the Oceanic, Portal app here

The celebration, unfolding from 4-6PM, offers an introduction to the installation with members of the artist team, including micha cárdenas, Gerald Casel, and Cynthia Ling Lee, followed by a DJ set by Gavilán Rayna Russom.

Artist introduction: 4:30PM

Performance: 5PM

Museum hours on the day will remain 12-6PM

Gavilán Rayna Russom’s visionary career reverberates at the intersection of experimental and dance floor sounds. Rayna’s creative arc began when she was still in high school – DJing parties and distributing home-produced tapes – and has carried her through many critically acclaimed releases as well as the founding of her own label Voluminous Arts.

This façade installation will be on view from April 29 – August 13, 2023.

HEALTH, SAFETY, ACCESSIBILITY

Light refreshments will be offered. This is a mask-optional gathering. Guests are welcomed to wear masks, and masks will be available at the museum front desk. We may provide additional instructions ahead of the event for registered guests.

Leslie-Lohman Museum strives to provide a welcoming environment to all visitors. External steps lead to our entrance doors: a wheelchair lift is available. All galleries are wheelchair-accessible, and a single-occupancy accessible restroom is located behind the visitor services desk: all restrooms are gender-neutral. Large print didactics are available.

To request access accommodations please contact info@leslielohman.org at least one week in advance of your planned visit.

Image Credit

Oceanic, Portal: micha cárdenas, Gerald Casel, Ian Costello, Cynthia Ling Lee, Susana Ruiz, and Huy Truong