Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi Lands / Chicago, IL

Nonotuck, Nipmuc, Pocumtuc Lands / Holyoke, Amherst, Northampton, MA

Lenapehoking / New York, NY

July – November 2024

New York, NY - Puerto Rican-born, Brooklyn-based artist Yanira Castro / a canary torsi, and a team of collaborators, launch a new public art project as an act of intervention during the 2024 Presidential election. With Exorcism = Liberation, the award-winning Castro engages the American public to experience shared concerns and future-building, embedded in Puerto Rican culture and the U.S.’s ongoing colonial history. Born out of the necessity to come together to enact a just collective future, Exorcism = Liberation grounds us in immersive experience and action. Trusting in the power of empathy, the project’s audio experiences offer space for the public to feel and to act while reflecting on difficult questions like: What is the disaster you are preparing for?

Coordinated with a multitude of participating community and arts organizations in citywide collective experiences between July and November 2024, Exorcism = Liberation will have an “on-the-ground” presence in three U.S. locations with strong Puerto Rican diaspora communities. This multifaceted project is stewarded locally by Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, IL; A.P.E. Ltd. in partnership with UMass Fine Arts Center in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts; and a canary torsi in New York City. Exorcism = Liberation can also be accessed on the project’s website: www.exorcism-liberation.net.

Exorcism = Liberation utilizes familiar forms of political media campaigns, placing provocative slogans on the street and mass transit, distributing stickers, posters, handmade banners, lawn signs, and buttons/pins through local community organizations acting as distribution hubs. The slogans reflect the project’s themes: 

“What is your first memory of dirt?”

“I came here to weep” 

and “Exorcism = Liberation.”

Accompanying each slogan is a QR code leading to an immersive audio experience in which local Puerto Rican performers prompt the individual listener to remember their connection to land, grieve, and conjure a liberated world. Exorcism = Liberation is a call to action, a rehearsal for collective liberation. “It offers a different kind of campaign than the election we are in the middle of,” says Castro. “We want to connect, challenge, spark conversation, contemplate, move, and provoke change.” 

Exorcism = Liberation is an extension of Yanira Castro / a canary torsi’s I came here to weep, a multimodal participatory project enacted by the public and supported by Creative Capital.

Link to download images here.

ARTISTIC CREDITS

Conceived, Written and Directed by Yanira Castro

Audio recordings performed by Melissa DuPrey, josé alejandro rivera, Steph Reyes

Bomba performed by Michael Rodríguez

Audio Design by Erica Ricketts

Graphic Design by Alejandro Torres Viera and Luis Vázquez O’Neill

Creative Producer Ariel Lembeck

Project Management Tyler Rai

PARTNERS AND HUB SITES

The following is a list of partnering organizations that are supporting Exorcism = Liberation by hosting an event and/or serving as a place where you can find the project’s materials (stickers, pins, etc.) that are available and free to the public. The list is still in formation. To join the project by becoming a participating hub please email [email protected].

• Hub sites where the public can find free project materials

Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi Lands / Chicago:

21C Museum Hotel Chicago, Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) *, The Guerrilla Art Collective / ARTivism Program at Curie Metro HS in Chicago, Honeycomb Network *, La Huerta Roots & Rays Garden, Lumpen Magazine, The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture *, Public Media Institute at Co-Prosperity, UrbanTheater Company

Nonotuck, Nipmuc, Pocumtuc Lands / Massachusetts:

Amherst College Library *, Amherst College La Causa, Amy H. Carberry Fine Arts Gallery at Springfield Technical Community College *, A.P.E (Available Potential Enterprises) Ltd. *, Holyoke Public Library *, Holyoke Media, Lighthouse, UMass Fine Arts Center *, W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst *

Lenapehoking / New York City:

Abrons Arts Center *, Center for Performance Research (CPR) *, CENTRO (Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College), The Chocolate Factory Theater *, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center *, The Invisible Dog Art Center *, ISSUE Project Room, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

The following is a list of events and activations taking place at Hub Sites that are hosting the project’s banners, posters, and other materials. Additional events and details to be announced in August. Updates will be available on the project’s website. All events are free to the public. Some will require registration or reservations.

JULY

July 9: Exorcism = Liberation website launch

 

July 13, 12-5PM: Prototypes of banners, stickers, and pins on display as part of LMCC/Open Studios

at LMCC’s Governors Island Art Center. A collective listening of What is your first memory of dirt? at 4PM.

AUGUST

Project launches in Chicago

August 12 - September 3: Exorcism = Liberation will be part of Public Media Institute’s Democrazy: DNC Counter-Programming at Co-Prosperity. The DNC is returning to Chicago and Public Media Institute and Lumpen Magazine are inviting artists, writers, and community organizers to confront the legacy of the 1968 DNC protests, when artists and activists came together to protest the Vietnam War and were met with police violence and state repression. Democrazy will revisit these histories while engaging with the urgent political movements of today. 

Exorcism = Liberation will participate with a window exhibition at Co-Prosperity and three slogan posters published in Lumpen Magazine 142: Democrazy.

SEPTEMBER

Project launches in New York and Massachusetts with installation of posters, lawn signs, and banners at all participating hubs.

September 5 & 6, Time TBA: An activation of Exorcism = Liberation with ice pops, limbers, as part of Fiesta Boricua / Bandera Bandera at UrbanTheater Company (Chicago, IL)

September 6 at 6PM: An activation of I came here to weep followed by a movement score performed by Martita Abril with ice pops, limbers de coco y limon, at Abrons Arts Center’s garden (Manahatta, NY)

September 6 - November 6

I came here to weep on view in the window of Abrons Art Center (Manahatta, NY)

September 7 at 6PM: An activation of What is your first memory of dirt? followed by a movement score performed by devynn emory. With ice pops, limbers de coco y limon, at The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY)

September 7 - November 6

What is your first memory of dirt? on view in the window of The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY)

September 12 at 6PM: Codemakers event. Activation of Exorcism = Liberation and communal meal centering a dialogue on self-determination presented by UMass Fine Arts Center at the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts lobby (Amherst, MA)

September 14 at 7PM: Activation of Exorcism = Liberation followed by a movement score performed by Martita Abril at CATCH 76! with ice pops, limbers de coco y limon, at The Chocolate Factory Theater (Queens, NY)

September 7 - November 6

What is your first memory of dirt? on view in the window of The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY)

September 15 - October 15: Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus signs in MA installed

September 15 - November 6

I came here to weep on view on the gate of A.P.E. Ltd (Northampton, MA)

September 21 at 2PM: Activation of I came here to weep and Long Table discussion with invited guests Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Sami Hopkins, and Theodore (ted) Kerr at ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn, NY)

September 25 – November 6

Exorcism = Liberation, I came here to weep, and What is your first memory of dirt banners on view in the windows of CPR – Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY)

September 28, 2-4PM: Activation of Exorcism = Liberation with ice pops, limbers de coco y limon.  The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (Manahatta, NY)

OCTOBER

October 5 - November 6: Installation of lawn signs along Chicago boulevards, marking the migration of Puerto Ricans in Chicago from Lincoln Park, Logan Square, and Humboldt Park to Aurora, IL. Installation of posters, lawn signs, and banners at Chicago participating hubs.

October 5 at 6PM: Activation of I came here to weep in a salon on grieving as an act of healing in partnership with Honeycomb Network (Chicago, IL).

October 6 at 12PM: Activation of What is your first memory of dirt? with neighbors centering land and remembrance as a collective tool toward liberation at La Huerta Community Garden with NeighborSpace (Chicago, IL)

October 10 at 6PM: Activation of Exorcism = Liberation and Long Table discussion, Art as Civic Ritual, with invited guests Tonika Johnson, Bindu Poroori and Gibran Villalobos at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago (Chicago, IL).

October 16 at 5PM: Storytelling and Aural Archive of What is your first memory of dirt?, centering family, land, and remembrance as a collective tool towards liberation. Local teens interview their families and neighbors about their first memories of land. Takes place at Holyoke Public Library with Holyoke Media.

October 17 at 4:30PM: - Activation and dialogue - I came here to weep with Professor Paul Schroeder Rodriguez and La Causa students at Amherst College Frost Library (Amherst, MA)

October 17 at 7PM: Community meal and activation of Exorcism = Liberation with La Causa students and faculty following library activation and dialogue at Amherst College La Causa (Amherst, MA)

NOVEMBER

November 1 at 6PM: Community meal and activation of What is your first memory of dirt? with guests TBA, centering land and remembrance as a collective tool toward liberation. Presented by A.P.E. Ltd at The Workroom @ 33 Hawley (Northampton, MA)

November TBA: Activation to be announced at CPR – Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY)

FUNDING CREDITS

Exorcism = Liberation is stewarded locally in Western MA by A.P.E. Ltd. in partnership with the UMass Fine Arts Center and by Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. In NYC, the project is spearheaded by Castro’s collaborative team, a canary torsi, and made possible by the generous support of Creative Capital Foundation, a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center Residency.

ARTIST BIOS

Yanira Castro (she/ella) is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn and working at the intersection of communal practices, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects that center collective action in works activated and performed by the public. Since 2009, she’s created and performed with a team of collaborators as a canary torsi. Their recent work includes a performance manual for reckoning; a participatory podcast to rehearse for a collective future; and I came here to weep, a collective exorcism for territorial possession.

Castro has been commissioned and presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago, The Invisible Dog Art Center, SPACE Gallery, PICA, LMCC, The Bates Dance Festival and ICA/Boston. Her work has recently been supported by Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, The Alpert Award, a NYSCA/NYFA Choreography & Interdisciplinary Artist Fellowships, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, LMCC, MacDowell, Yaddo, Gibney and Marble House Project.  She has received two New York Dance and Performance (aka Bessie) Awards for Outstanding Production. acanarytorsi.org

PERFORMERS

Steph Reyes (she/her) is an actress, theater maker, and dancer. She was born in Manati, Puerto Rico. She studied at the Ballet School of Puerto Rico/Julian E. Blanco. She holds a BA in Dance from the Instituto de Danza Alicia Alonso, Madrid, and an MFA in Devised Theater Performance from Columbia College, Chicago. Reyes also trained in the international theater school Arthaus Berlin in 2019 as part of her MFA. During the winter of 2017, she participated in the Gaga Winter Workshop, taught by the Batsheva Company and Ohad Naharin. Reyes has been a part of recognized companies like Ballet the Camara de Madrid, Taller de Andanza, and Guateque Ballet Folklorico. Her most recent work includes the devised piece Mira and the Liminal Dimension with Human Agenda Theatre. She also devised and performed a solo piece called Colonized Imagination, which talks about the colonizing repercussions on the Puerto Rican people. She choreographed the piece Into the, which won the 2018 Contemporary Dance Artistic Creation of the Year at Instituto de Danza Alicia Alonso. She is currently part of Serious Play Theater Company with whom she will premiere the play, Moving Water this summer in Northampton, MA. She is interested in collaborative and multimedia performance work that incorporates visual art, movement, text, installations, music, and more.

Melissa DuPrey (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, producer, educator, and playwright with roots in Humboldt Park, Chicago. She is a critically acclaimed solo artist whose work spans more than a decade with five full-length solo plays highlighting the intersections of Blackness, queerness, healing, and sexuality. DuPrey is also a community organizer and spiritualist who launched The Good Grief Project in 2020, an extension of the social justice component from her solo play GOOD GRIEF in which communities of color are connected to local, accessible, and multidisciplinary mental and spiritual wellness practitioners of color. DuPrey’s full-length play BRUJAJA, directed by Miranda Gonzalez, was digitized as a theatrical film by UrbanTheater Company in 2021 for its world premier. She has performed stand-up comedy in Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. She was most recently seen as “Dr. Sara Ortiz” on Grey's Anatomy (seasons 17 and 18). She’s also been seen on Empire (FOX), The Resident (FOX), Chicago PD (NBC), and The Chi (Showtime). Her theater credits include works at Court Theater, The Goodman Theater, Steppenwolf, Free Street Theater, UrbanTheater Company, Victory Gardens, The Greenhouse Theater, Oracle Theater, and Teatro Luna. She is currently an ensemble member at UrbanTheater Company, Africaribe, and a faculty member in the Master of Fine Arts program at Randolph College.

josé alejandro rivera (he/they/elle) is a multiply neurodivergent artist, composer, designer, land worker, and organizer who often works with sound and space across multimedia installations, maps, performances, transmission art, sound design for films and podcasts, and experimental audio works. rivera moves from an awareness that considers sound a portal into collective presence and as an invitation to listen beyond it; to the wisdom of the more than human, to places and times, and to one’s bodymind, dreams, and ancestral resonances. Their current investigations utilize radio space as a means to playfully explore associations between neurodivergence, queerness, the political and cultural history of Borikén, diasporic identity, ufology, language, and decolonization. As a community organizer with the Vermont Releaf Collective and as an arts educator, they have developed collaborative garden projects and taught courses and workshops on sound and deep listening, expanded states, storytelling, and various place-based practices. Along with numerous collaborations and solo projects that have been presented internationally, their fluid creative practice includes the design and construction of an open-air theater for a youth dance and drumming group in Abetenim, Ghana. rivera received a BS in Architecture & Environmental Design from Kent State University in 2011, and was a graduate fellow in the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT, where they studied art and sound (SMact 2017). They currently live and tend land on Mohican Territory in southwest Vermont. To learn more, visit proxemiasound.net.

Michael Rodriguez, Jr. has over 25 years of experience as a Latin percussionist who hails from the Logan Square and Hermosa areas of Chicago. As both performer and teacher, Rodriguez is intentional about spreading the love of music culture, and learning.

DESIGN TEAM

Erica Ricketts (she/they) is an audio artist working in film, TV, podcasting and performance in roles such as Foley artist, SFX editor, dialogue editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer. Some of their recent credits include Daughter of the Bride, Rounding, My Summer Vacation, Puppet Man, season 2 of Bottom Lines, Top Dollars, and most recently with Yanira Castro’s Last Audience: a performance podcast and I came here to weep. Ricketts is audio designer for Castro’s latest project Exorcism = Liberation.

Alejandro Torres Viera (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer born and raised in Puerto Rico interested in using design as a tool to examine the tensions between art, culture, and politics. He is currently designing digital experiences at Fix.Studio, an independent studio founded in 2021.

Luis Vázquez O’Neill is a Puerto Rican designer and creative director working between New York City and Puerto Rico with museums, galleries, and non-profit organizations on visual identities, editorial design, and type design based work.

Ariel Lembeck (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and creative producer working inside of installation, performance, and video. She lives and works in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY) and has collaborated with Yanira Castro since 2021. She is the Creative Producer for Castro’s latest project Exorcism = Liberation.

Tyler Rai (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and independent producer who works across live performance, narrative essays, and experimental sound works. She is Project Manager for Castro’s latest public art project Exorcism = Liberation.

STEWARDING PARTNERS

Experimental Sound Studio is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization dedicated to artistic evolution and the creative exploration of sound. As an international hub for sonic experimentation, ESS nurtures artists, cultivates new works, and builds a broad, supportive community of makers, enthusiasts, and creative partners through production, presentation, education, and preservation. Collaboration and resource sharing propel ESS’s activities, from public programs to organizational strategy.

ess.org | IG: @esschicago | X: @ExSoSt | YouTube: ExperimentalSoundStudio

Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd. (A.P.E.) is an artist-led, artist-centered 501(c)3 non-profit organization in Northampton, MA supporting contemporary artists working in all disciplines by stewarding the spaces in which they create, perform and exhibit their work. A.P.E is dedicated to fostering relationships, encounters, and exchanges that nourish the capacity for imagination. apearts.org

The Fine Arts Center is the multidisciplinary arts and innovation hub of the University of Massachusetts, supporting the development of students and artists and enhancing the cultural life of western Massachusetts. fac.umass.edu

Press Contact:

Janet Stapleton

212-633-0016 / [email protected]