Video documentation of Connections by Cracked Eggs presented on June 29, 2022 at 4:00pm-6:00pm ET on Zoom.
Directed by Linda Sibio
Played by Erica Mosco
Followed by Linda Sibio’s solo performance, “Wall Street Guillotine”
Workshop Assistance by Isolde Kille
Videography by Dominic Paul Miller
Animations by Blake Brousseau
Costumes by Danielle Kinoshita
Cracked Eggs is the pilot collaboration between interdisciplinary artist, Linda Sibio, and San Bernardino County’s Department of Behavioral Health (SBC-DBH.) Linda’s lived experience with schizophrenia has led her to develop creative exercises that channel mental differences into creative expression. She first designed the Cracked Eggs as an arts workshop series in 2002. Currently, she is partnering with SBC-DBH to provide virtual workshops to public health clients living in San Bernardino County. Participants are active members of community clubhouses which provide an array of support for individuals living with severe mental illnesses. Linda’s goals for the workshop include decreased stigmatization of mental differences by engaging public audiences and greater connections between the mind and body. She describes her artistic practices in the following:
“My design techniques have developed from research into the perceptions of the insane, taking ‘symptoms’ of insanity and transposing them into techniques for making experimental art. These methods include fragmentation, interrupters, non-linear time sequencing, multiple layers of images and stories, dismemberment, psychological torture, broadcasting, delusions, and hallucinations. I have written a book detailing exercises that use hieroglyphs, graphs, schizophrenic thinking, and structured chaos to enhance the creative process. I call my philosophy ‘The Insanity Principle.’
Social justice issues such as economic disparity, the mentally disabled and their place in society, and the plight of the homeless are common themes throughout my work. My vision includes the modern-day ostracizing of the insane from a productive society. As we dispose of human beings, so then we go toward a disposable culture. We are living in a deconstructed world and need to fragment to become whole again.”
BIOS
Linda Sibio
Linda Sibio was awarded a Franklin Furnace Fund in 1992 to bring her performance work, “W.Va. Schizophrenic Blues,” to the Anchorage venue in New York City produced by Creative Time. Since then, she has incorporated issues around insanity as a major component to her artistic practice. In 1985, she taught performance classes for Los Angeles Poverty Department where she first began collaborating alongside people with mental differences. This led her to write the book, “Reflections in a Broken Mirror,” and develop her philosophical stance called, “The Insanity Principle.” She has exhibited her fine art projects in Los Angeles, New York, The Netherlands, and with organizations such as Cooper Union School of Art, High Desert Test Sites, LAMP, Morongo Basin Mental Health, and Art Possibilities and Pathways. Her work is the subject of an upcoming solo exhibition at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles.
Erica Mosco
Erica Mosco When I was sixteen years old, I started drawing full time. I like to play video games and with toys and stuffed animals and be with my friends. I dream about helping people and being on the ocean somehow.
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo treads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively through creative experiences that he unfolds within the quotidian. Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, in 2011 he was baptized as a Bronxite; a citizen of the Bronx. Nicolás is the founding director of The Interior Beauty Salon, an organism living at the intersection of creativity and healing:www.interiorbeautysalon.com @interiorbeautysalon
John Fleck
John Fleck is a performance artist and actor whose work has spanned performance spaces, museums, theater, television, and film. In 1990 Fleck and three other performance artists were branded the NEA-4 when their work was labelled ‘obscene’ by conservative lawmakers who put pressure on the National Endowment for the Arts to rescind their funding. They took their case to the Supreme Court and won.
J.T. Eisenhauer Richardson
J.T. Eisenhauer Richardson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at The Ohio State University. As a writer, scholar, musician, and artist, their work considers trans*/crip/(neuro)queer temporalities, poetics, and space through a diverse engagement with social and cultural theory and philosophy. Their research is published widely in journals and books including Studies in Art Education, Disability Studies Quarterly, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Contemporary Arts and Disability Studies, and in the forthcoming book, Neurodiversity and Architecture.
Blake Brousseau
Blake Brousseau, self-taught artist, has lived in Joshua Tree area for the last 20 years. Blake has been with Bezerk Productions since 2004 and worked on projects including “St. Pity “and Prophet of Doom in the Banana Republic.” He has donated “video backgrounds” that Bezerk Productions uses in their virtual “Cracked Eggs” workshops.
Dominic Miller
Dominic Miller is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, painting, and other media. He studied printmaking at Arizona State University and received his MFA in public art at UC San Diego in 2016. In 2015, he completed a Fulbright research project in Tijuana where he collaborated with the transborder labor rights collective, Ollin Calli. His public projects have been exhibited internationally at Oceanside Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Vincent Price Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Universitario del País Vasco, Bilbao; Phoenix Art Museum; and Centro Cultural Paso del Norte, Juárez, Mexico. His artwork is permanently held by Tucson Museum of Art and Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Art + Environment. He will be featured in the 2023 Mexicali Biennial at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art in Riverside, CA.
Isolde Kille
Isolde Kille is the workshop assistant at Bezerk Production. Born in Germany, she holds an MFA in visual communication from the UdK Berlin. In Berlin, Isolde organized several independent art initiatives which connected her to the art market in the US. She gained experience working for artists and nonprofits in New York, while her artwork received international recognition. Through her interest in experimental art processes Isolde has developed a dynamic practice that at once investigates and subverts the fundamental elements of art making in relation to environment. Isolde Kille is the founder & curator of the video network: https://www.timespecific.net @timespecifics
Reg Bloor
Reg Bloor is a veteran NYC experimental guitarist/composer known for frantically dissonant solo work as well as a long tenure as guitarist and Concertmaster for composer Glenn Branca. Founder of the bands The Paranoid Critical Revolution and Twitcher, Reg began performing as a solo artist in 2014, including at The Red Bull Music Academy, the OFF Festival, and Basilica Drone and has received grants from City Artist Corps, New Music USA, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Reg is currently working on her third solo release for Systems Neutralizers Records.
Danielle Kinoshita
Danielle Kinoshita is a multidisciplinary artist and designer, living in Joshua Tree, CA. She spends her time making art and loves volunteering with Bezerk productions.
