Wednesday, April 30th, 2014. New York City – On Saturday, April 26th, 2014, was the great debut of the performance “Children of the Mercy Trials (a transcript)”. The performance was presented by Mercy Drive, Inc. at the “RE/Mixed Media Festival IV” at CultureHub in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village, NYC.
Short video of the performance. The video includes reviews from audience members: Lissette Eusebio, Professor Una Chung, Darius Burroughs and Professor Jackie Orr.
Mercy Drive, Inc. brings together the ensemble that produced Ecstatic Corona, presented last year at the festival. In this new work, they focus on the traumatic marginalization that has shaped our experience of institutional policies and practices aimed at education, mental illness, death, immigration and family.
Mercy Drive, Inc. is a visual, sound, multimedia performance using video, photography, a remix of archival and electronic sounds, spoken words and dance to convey the political, economic and cultural forces of institutions through our affective responses to them both as practitioners and as clients. Moving from the societal to the private in experiencing estrangement, despondency, resiliency and hope, Mercy Drive, Inc. asks the audience to rethink the personal and the communal in terms of a social economy of affect.
In this picture, McDonald and Elizabeth, two of the performing artists.
The picture in the background was taken on 3/13/2013*
Performing artists:
Chair/Facilitator: Patricia Clough.
Patricia is professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center and Queens College of the City University of New York. Clough’s work has drawn on theoretical traditions concerned with technology, affect, unconscious processes, timespace and political economy. Currently she has been working on a book project about Corona where she grew up in Queens New York. It will be an ethnographic historically researched experimental-writing book.
McDonald Morris.
“Mac” is a B’klyn native, black queer artist, educator and movement enthusiast. With a degree in creative writing and philosophy, his disciplinary focus and writings have been on psycho-social traveling, trauma and recovery with Race, Gender and Sexuality as a locus. He is the recipient of the 2010 Wells College William Nicholas Liberi ’05 Memorial Prize for T.L.G.B.Q. Activism and Scholarship and is currently engaged in youth development work emphasizing critical social justice education.
Yeong Ran Kim.
Yeong is a researcher and a media artist based in New York City. Her research interests center on analyzing normalized violence under the neoliberal governance that affects the construction of the urban everyday life. She explore a new terrain of knowledge production through an engagement with new media technology that offers a ground for multiple voices, murmurs, movements, and rhythmicity to be alive and to exist together, generating new forms of scholarly arguments.
Omar Montana.
Omar is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is interested in US-Colombian relations and is currently in the early stages of a multi-sited project that entails urban biking vis-à-vis the production of space, urban transportation, and climate change.
Elizabeth Garcia.
Elizabeth has a BA in Sociology. Grew up in Corona where attended school until undergraduate career. Worked in an after school program where the curiosity corona as a neighborhood emerged. Danced since junior high school and have used it as a way to express myself when struggled with using words. Took dance classes while pursuing undergrad. Still take classes occasionally. Have been part of St Leo’s youth group since age of 12, currently attend and as a leader.
Elijah Kuan Wong.
Elijah is a hip-hop singer-songwriter and poet born and raised in Queens, NY. He holds a B.A. in Political Economy from Sarah Lawrence College. His work, and forthcoming debut album, AK47RU486, focuses on autobiographical themes of ghetto ontology, spirituality, compassion fatigue, and the psychophysiology of trauma and violence. He currently teaches emotional literacy to young incarcerated men at Rikers Island.
In this picture, Elizabeth and McDonald, two of the performing artists.
The picture in the background was taken on 6/17/2012** and it says “Am I free to go? I do not consent to a search. I’m going to remain silent. I want a lawyer”. This is what people need to do if they are stop by the police in the United States of America.
The “RE/Mixed Media Festival IV” is a celebration of collaborative art-making and creative appropriation. It’s the artists’ contribution to the ongoing conversation about remixing, mashups, copyright law, fair use, and the freedom of artists to access their culture in order to add to and build upon it. RE/Mixed Media Festival IV will be held on April 26-27, 2014 at The New School and CultureHub in cooperation with the School of Media Studies, and Parsons New School of Design. Evening performances and exhibits will be held at various theaters and clubs in the New School’s neighborhood of Greenwich Village, NYC.
*The picture in the background was taken by an unknown photographer on Wednesday, March 13th, 2013, during a march from East 55th Street and Church Ave in East Flatbush to the 67th precinct in Brooklyn, NYC. The rally and march was after the killing of Kimani “Kiki” Gray by Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova from the New York Police Department (NYPD).
**The picture in the background was taken by an unknown photographer on Sunday, June 17th, 2012, during the silent march against racial profiling. Protesters demanded the end of the “Stop and Frisk” policy by the New York Police Department (NYPD).
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