States of Democracy

 

Mia Adams      Hina Barla     Yasmina Chavez      Jake Dockins      Lindsay Garcia     Martin Krafft    Michael Marks

Ashanti McGee      Stacy Arezou Mehrfar        Kelley O’Brien

 

 

Yasmina Chavez

Title: Year of the Cat, 2019

About the work:

Enter the homes of eight females and watch as dance to the same song. This work was filmed in 360 degrees. It was inspired by the #metoo movement and the "grab them by the pussy" assault that accelerated the discourse behind the movement. This video explores the idea of personal and safe space and individuality starting with a mythical character performing a ritualistic cat call dance that opens up a gateway into the participant's homes. The project is dedicated to my late friend Susanne Forestieri.

 

Biography:

Yasmina Chavez is a time-based media artist and curator who lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada. She received her BFA in photography from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 2011 and MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from Alfred University in New York in 2016. Chavez works across disciplinary boundaries, including video and sound installations, experimental documentary cinema, dance, printmaking, photography and performance. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been a featured artist in media-based festivals including the 2018 Vibrant Digit in Shenyang China, 2013 Life Is Beautiful festival, 2012 and 2014 London Biennale Las Vegas satellite exhibits, and the Off the Strip new genres festival in 2010. In 2011, she co-founded and co-curated 5th Wall Gallery located in downtown Las Vegas bringing in new genre installation-based work and art events to the local art scene.

 

Chavez has been an active performer in R.A.D.A.R. L.V. – a Vegas-based bi-monthly performance art event since late 2018, with her most recent performance at the 2019 Goldwell Bullfrog Biennale, in Rhyolite, NV. Her fifth solo exhibit, the Suchness of Light–an abstract photo series for the Clark County library system–opened in October of 2019 and will continue to be exhibited at additional libraries in 2020. She works full-time at Greenspun Media Group–who publishes the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper the Las Vegas Sun and multiple Las Vegas entertainment magazines like the Las Vegas Weekly–as their Multimedia Manager and she is also a part-time instructor of Intermedia Art at the University of Nevada Las Vegas

Duration: 8 minutes 10 seconds