chimæra/project was a small trans(ient) collective making work together
about what it means to be ﾟ･:*✧:+˚chimaera˚+:✧*:･ﾟ
: incongruous, grafted, mutating, illusory beings, giving form to the (im)possible.
the chimaera/project collective was a small, temporary collective, made up of artists who are trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming (gnc), and/or who do not relate to gender as it is defined and employed under colonization.
the 2024 Oregon Contemporary Artists’ Biennial was focused on themes of networks, community, care, and support. rather than making work that was about these themes, our collective centered these themes in our practice. pushing against the common narrative (and lived practice, for many of us) of the isolated artist alone in their studio, we showed up together over the course of the biennial to create and play.
we searched for and dove into the echoes and resonance amongst one another’s creative interests; spiders, webs, ploceidae, weaving, mending, wrecking, interference, transmission, transforming, monstrousness, bodies, materiality, craft, magic, mourning, honoring...
chimaera/project was:
Carter Silago, Chuck Farts, daelyn lambi, Evan Amrine, Francis Dot, Iram Asghar, jesse narens, Korbin Reder, MAHMA JAGUAR, স্নেহা mei, Pablo V. Cazares, Stacia Aguilar, Xiinii Bee, & ziven.
our installation was on view in the front windows of an empty unit in the Lloyd Center Mall in April-August 2024, as an offsite element of the Oregon Contemporary Artists Biennial.
we also hosted four activations of the site to encourage folks to view our work, and to build community.
this project was as much about simply being together as it was the portal we built together in these windows.
it resisted documentation and capture. you had to be there.
together we have lots of thoughts about how this biennial unfolded.
we may share them some day.
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