Michele Jaquis

2022 - ongoing

a series of altered American flags. Embroidered text are quotes from the podcast We Are All Americans.

Exhibitions:

Michele Jaquis: Shelf Life, Proxy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 06.01.23 - 06.30.23

all my friends are in This show, Kimball Jenkins, Concord, NH, 04.20.23 - 06.30.23

Sociality, LA TATE Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 03.11.23 - 04.08.23

Un-Civil War! (an election special), Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, 10.01.22 - 12.10.22

Inspired by one of the collaborations made with my son while social distancing, Mud Drawings: Reflecting on our grief, was a socially engaged project in conjunction with DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, held at the Shalom Institute in Malibu, CA, August 14-21, 2021.

DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, a project by Cara Levine and *supported by the AJU’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, was a week-long performance of digging a large-scale hole in the ground, around which other artists utilized the site as a container for new works relating to grief and mourning, after a year of great collective loss. The weeklong duration contains this symbolic period of mourning or ‘shiva’, at the end of which, on the second Saturday, we filled the hole with water and perform a ritual cleansing or ‘mikveh’, then refilled it with its original dirt, and planted native seeds to complete the cycle for renewal. Artists Adrienne Adar, Dorit Cypis, Faye Driscoll, Sonia Guiñansca, Asher Hartman, Michele Jaquis, and, hannah rubin each presented new work on site throughout the week. More info at digahole.live.

Mud Drawings, my contribution to DIG, commenced once diggers needed their first break. My son and I mixed mud from the hole, then participants were invited to make drawing tools from natural materials found on site, and draw or write on large watercolor paper. The resulting drawings could either be taken home or left on site to accumulate and viewed as a collection at the culmination of the project.

*Many thanks to The American Jewish University's Institute for Jewish Creativity, The Shalom Institute, Rotem Rozental, Bill Kaplan, Arthur Pinchev for your support. Many thanks to The American Jewish University's Institute for Jewish Creativity, The Shalom Institute, Rotem Rozental, Bill Kaplan, Arthur Pinchev for their support.

All photos by Michele Jaquis, unless otherwise noted.

…a continuation of Collaborating with my five year old son while social distancing, a project started in March 2020.

When the pandemic hit Southern California, where I have lived for the past 20 years, and social distancing became required I started working remotely from home for my academic job while also homeschooling a preschooler. At first I felt envious of those artists without kids at home posting to social media as they reveled in their newfound extra studio time. Instead I was forced to put many art projects on hold due to the impossibility of maintaining a full time job, let alone an art practice, without childcare. So with a nod to Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s early Maintenance Art, I chose to accept that for the time being most of my art production had become collaborating with my son (or in many cases helping him fabricate what he art directs). Some projects (as noted in the image captions) were also made in collaboration with my husband, Jeremy Quinn.

This was an ongoing project documented on my instagram and gradually being archived here.

I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife. I am a mother. (Random order).

I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also, (up to now separately I “do” Art.

Now, I will simply do these maintenance everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art.

excerpt Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art Manifesto, 1969

When the pandemic hit Southern California, where I have lived for the past 20 years, and social distancing became required I started working remotely from home for my academic job while also homeschooling a preschooler. At first I felt envious of those artists without kids at home posting to social media as they reveled in their newfound extra studio time. Instead I was forced to put many art projects on hold due to the impossibility of maintaining a full time job, let alone an art practice, without childcare. So with a nod to Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s early Maintenance Art, I chose to accept that for the time being, most of my art production had become collaborating with my son (or in many cases helping him fabricate what he art directs). Some projects (as noted in the image captions) were also made in collaboration with my husband, Jeremy Quinn.

This was an ongoing project documented on my instagram and here.

See also Collaborating with my six year old son while social distancing.

I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife. I am a mother. (Random order).

I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also, (up to now separately I “do” Art.

Now, I will simply do these maintenance everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art.

excerpt Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art Manifesto, 1969

Exhibitions:

Postcard reproductions of Green Ninja and Aardvark Mom were included in HINDSIGHT IS 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse, curated by James MacDevitt for Cerritos College Art Gallery.

Press:

“See What Some Otis Faculty Worked on During the Pandemic,” The Grid, Otis College of Art and Design, Spring 2021

Carol Cheh, “Hindsight Is 2020' Offers Visceral (Not Virtual) Art Experiences in a Box,” KCET’s Southland Sessions, Dec. 16, 2020.

5 min. HD video loop
concept by Michele Jaquis and Deanna Neil

directed, shot and edited by Michele Jaquis

performed by Badly Licked Bear, Sloane Corddry, Evan "McChicken" Craig, Kristi Engle, Max Siegal, Max Norden, and Dylan Rashman

The Scapegoat and The Precipice is a contemporary midrash on the Scapegoat Ritual in Leviticus, made specifically for the Yom Kippur Experience at the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center. Throughout this dream-like video goats graze on a dry hillside in downtown Los Angeles while Aaron/Erin walks to the edge of a cliff, looks out and returns. They place their hands one on top of another, and on top of a goat, as do their ancestors/offspring, before and after them, to confess their inequities and transgressions, over and over again in an endless loop.

With a nod to that last scene in Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who when characters, too small to be seen, repeatedly yell “We Are Here! We Are Here!” and in response to the increased xenophobia due to former President Trump’s words and policies, this body of work is made in solidarity with all those who feel invisible or displaced.

We Are Here (Spanish/Yiddish) is a diptych of drawings. On the left side the title is translated into Yiddish and Spanish, while on the right abstract lines actually map the trajectories to Southern California from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and to Ellis Island from Austria, Russia, Lithuania and Latvia.

We Are Here (Spanish/Yiddish embroidery), was made with yarn that has been unraveled from a sleeveless sweater originally made and worn by the artists Great-Grandmother. The yarn and canvas are the same color and tonality, emphasizing the need for the statement when people feel unseen or unconsidered.

Tikkun / Repair, displays the remnants of the sweater made by my great-grandmother, Pauline Zuckerberg Kahn.

In Solidarity, a textile piece which became part of a larger collaborative quilt, was made with Diana-Sofia Estrada. Fabric from her mother’s homeland of Guatemala is merged with fabric knit by my Austrian-American great-grandmother, joining two generations of immigration.

We Are Here (English) hints at pluralism with layers of text overlapping (or stomping out) each other in a single drawing. While We Are Here (Trans / American Flag) argues for equal rights for transgendered Americans.

The drawings We Are Here Together (English) and We Are Here Together (Arabic/Hebrew) speak of the need to work collectively even within opposing political views and contested territories (particularly between the Left and Right in the United States and between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian people).

Never Again (Hebrew/English/Japanese/Spanish) was made in protest of the recent rise in Anti-Semitism. The multi-lingual text draws connections between the Holocaust and the numerous Concentration Camps across the U.S. used to imprison Japanese Americans during WWII and Latin-American migrants, refugees and asylum seekers during the Trump administration. Versions exist as both graphite on paper and embroidery on canvas.

We Are Not Your Pawns (English/Hebrew) was made in response to the Trump administration’s announcement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the hypocrisy of those who simultaneously conduct anti-Semitic actions while supporting the Israeli government for ulterior motives. Versions exist as both graphite on paper and embroidery on canvas.

i feel uncomfortable in all white spaces was made in the aftermath of various white supremacist responses to the Black Lives Matter movement and the results of 2020 US Presidential election. Versions exist as graphite on paper, colored pencil on paper, and embroidery on canvas. The statement acknowledges the precarious proximity to whiteness and white privilege that many Ashkenazi Jewish - Americans, like myself, reside in, and the real threat we feel from white supremacists. In this piece, more than the others in this series, the color of the embroidery and the canvas hold meaning just as much as the text does. Versions exist as graphite on paper, colored pencil on paper, and embroidery on canvas.

A Nation Of… is a drawing that acknowledges all who make up the United States (Natives& Immigrants& Forced Migrants& Settlers& Colonizers.

We Are Here (Spanish/Yiddish) and Never Again (Hebrew/English/Japanese/Spanish) are also available on T-shirts, onesies, tote bags and stickers through threadless.com. Proceeds from the sale of apparel and stickers are donated to RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services).

Exhibitions:

The drawings We Are Here, Together (English) and We Are Here, Together (Arabic / Hebrew) were included in the exhibition Sociality, LA TATE Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. March 11 - April 8, 2023

The drawings A Nation Of… and Never Again were included in the exhibition Un-Civil War! (An Election Special) at Torrance Art Museum. Oct. 1 - Dec. 10, 2022.

We Are Here (Yiddish / Spanish embroidery) and Tikkun/Repair were included in the exhibition Migrant Madonna at SoLA Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA, April 21 - May 14, 2022.

Michele Jaquis: We Are Here, Together at Cerritos College Art Gallery, Norwalk, CA, Sept. 12-25, 2021.

Never Again (Hebrew/English/Japanese/Spanish - embroidery) and Tikkun/Repair was included in the online version of Torrance Art Museum’s Nomad at the Del Amo Crossing Medical Building, Aug. 28-29, 2021.

Michele Jaquis: We Are Here, Together at Proxy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, June 1 - 30, 2021.

A postcard reproduction of the We Are Here (Yiddish/Spanish embroidery) & Never Again (Hebrew/English/Japanese/Spanish) was included in HINDSIGHT IS 2020: Dispatches from the Edge of an Apocalypse, curated by James MacDevitt for the Cerritos College Art Gallery in Norwalk, CA.

Conference Presentations:

”We Are Here, Together,” Conney Conference on Jewish Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, March 2022

Press/Publications:

Window Dressing III: Spring 2020 | Fall 2021, Cerritos College Art Gallery, June 2022, pg. 204-231

Migrant Madonna exhibition catalog, SoLA Contemporary, May 2022, pg. 23-26.

“Michele Jaquis: We are Here, Together online at Proxy Gallery,” RISD Alumni News + Events, June 2021

Carol Cheh, “Hindsight Is 2020' Offers Visceral (Not Virtual) Art Experiences in a Box,” KCET’s Southland Sessions, Dec. 16, 2020.

Supported in part by a 2018 Sabbatical, two Faculty Development Grants, and equipment loans from Otis College of Art and Design, this body of work is inspired by inherited letters written by my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother during WWI.

The first iteration was an ebook, Letters to Pauline, shared with family members in 2012. The book includes letters written by Barnett (Ben) Kahn to Pauline Zuckerberg between 1918-1919 while Ben was serving in the US Army during WWI. Also included are his US military discharge papers, US Certificate of Naturalization, their wedding announcement, and other various documents, and postcards.

In 2016 I performed Letters to Pauline by reading as many letters as I could for a ten minutes as part of The Eternal Telethon, both an in person and live streamed event at Human Resources in Los Angeles, CA.

Dearest Pauline, a 12 minute video excerpt of a four hour performative reading of all the letters, was included in Second Daytime, an online exhibition curated by Sarah Rushford for Ortega y Gasset in Brooklyn, NY, April through August, 2018.

A four hour, multi-channel version is currently in production with plans to release shorter excerpts throughout the post-production phase.

The main focus of Dearest Pauline is the love letters between these two recent immigrants, but the subtext is the fact that they only gained US citizenship after Ben was discharged from the US Army and that my existence as one of their Ashkenazi-Jewish-American great-grandchildren was made possible by their escape from Eastern Europe before the Nazis rose to power. I read these letters on video one hundred years after they were written and one year after Trump’s inauguration precipitated a rise in xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic policies and violence.

A series of drawings pair singular images with quotes from various letters. The bright colors contrast the heaviness of the words and the lack of context invites viewers to question the time and location being referred to. For instance, are the "house[s]... shot to pieces" in Europe during one of the World Wars, South Central Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, or contemporary Syria?

In addition to the video installation, the project will be compiled as a limited edition deluxe artist book, each containing reproductions of the letters, a USB stick with an audio book file, unique drawings inspired by quotes from the letters (watercolor and pencil on inkjet prints of Ben’s handwriting), a small glass jar of tiny shards of paper from the original deteriorating letters, along with photographs, maps and essays that place it all in the contemporary context of American military life, foreign relations and immigrant experiences.

Paul’s Brain is a collection of videos, drawings, and sculptures made in collaboration with and inspired by Paul Pattison, a long time friend who suffered from epilepsy. Paul and I met in 1996 while we were students at Burren College of Art in Ireland. We stayed in touch after I returned to the States and he often visited whichever city I was living in. We began collaborating in 2007 by recording a conversation about his experiences with epilepsy and the memory loss, depression, and addiction that came with it. The intention was to develop a two-person exhibition of his relief prints with my videos and sculptures. For various reasons this project was put on hold and several years later Paul asked if I’d like to make a documentary about his epilepsy, completely forgetting that we had started that project already. Paul died in 2015, at which point I resolved myself to complete the work in his honor, using the recorded conversation as a starting point from which the rest evolved.

The highlight of this body of work is a two channel video projection with stereo sound, Paul’s Brain. This 29-minute experimental documentary cuts back and forth between a voiceover of the 2007 recorded conversation between Paul and I paired with night shots of the Venice, CA neighborhood he frequented (projected on the right side), and shots of his sister during a conversation we recorded in 2016, a year after Paul died (projected on the left). Transitions between each conversation are marked by a jolt of fast motion, night scenes of Venice traffic and the abrasive sound of the buzzer from the “Operation” game.

Marionette (a neurological loss of control), is a sculpture (approximately 4’ x 8’ x 10’) of a disembodied and discarded large marionette control made of maple wood and rope, constructed ten years after Paul and I conceived of it. (The wood could either lean against the wall in the corner or hang from the ceiling, while the pieces of rope trail and tangle along the floor.) This symbolizes Paul’s recollection of the loss of control he felt during his seizures and brain surgeries.

Three watercolor drawings of hands holding marionette controls while wearing surgical gloves, all titled Paul’s Brain: they touch something and you laugh, cry, stop breathing, create two-dimensional, symbolic imagery in dialog with the rest of the work.

A second sculpture, Paul’s Shirt, includes hand-embroidered text (a quote from one of Paul’s psychology professors: “He was less than he wanted to be, but far more than he thought he was.”) sewn into the back of one of Paul’s shirts, which is slung over the back of a wooden chair. Like the marionette control, this sculpture references the absence of the body yet also emphasizes a physicality and attention to detail and care that is required when dealing with both physical and mental health issues.

In the video, you wonder if you were different before (it’s all just a game to them, you know), the audience hears a conversation between myself and Paul about his experiences with epilepsy and his various medical interventions, while a slow motion image shows his hands holding tweezers while trying to remove the plastic ice cream cone in the “brain freeze” section of the children’s game “Operation.” The resulting buzzing sound periodically interrupts the conversation, which fluctuates between serious and humorous.

Also included is an untitled framed relief print, made by Paul sometime in the mid-2000s. In this black and white print a surgeon holds a scalpel above the head of man wearing an oxygen mask while lying on his side. This is one his most overtly autobiographical pieces and also what prompted our collaboration.

Exhibitions:

Viral Integration, curated by elin o’Hara slavick, Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, 2.01.24 - 12.15.24 (drawings: they touch something and you laugh, cry, stop breathing v. 2 & 3)

Telling Stories, curated by Michael Miller, El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance, CA, 2.13.23 - 3.9.23
(two channel video installation version of Paul’s Brain)

… a new liver every day, curated by Orly Ruaimi, Union, Los Angeles, CA, 8.24.19
(you wonder if you were different before (it’s all just a game to them, you know))

Kamikaze 2019: Michele Jaquis & Paul Pattison, PØST @ MiM, Los Angeles, CA, 07.25.19
(everything in the series)

Embracing: A Collaboration between ECF and Otis College of Art and Design, DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 12.7.18 - 01.03.19
(Paul’s Shirt and They Touch something… v 2)

Screenings:
ReelHeArt International Film Festival, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 07.03.19
(split screen, two-channel version of Paul’s Brain, Official Selection, Nominated for Best Documentary Short & Best Editing)

New Works Salon, Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA, 08.23.2017
(single channel rough cut of Paul’s Brain)

54 second animation with stereo sound

This short video is a stylized recreation of my daily attempts to correct the limited gender roles depicted in outdated children’s books.

Screenings:

soft bytes: a feminist animation festival, curated by the Association of Hysteric Curators at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, 5.19.18

site specific installation with acrylic and wool yarn
dimensions variable

When I was invited to exhibit at 2^2 (two to the second power) Gallery, a tiny gallery in two unused electrical junction boxes, I was originally inspired to make something warm, soft and pink, as a contrast to the cold, hard, grey concrete and galvanized steel. As I worked with the materials two forms emerged that would separately inhabit each metal box - a tiny larva like shape and a larger ball of yarn with vine like growths stretching up the wall and along the windowsill. I realize now that unconsciously I was making a portrait of my son and his miscarried twin.

Exhibitions:

2^2 (two to the second power) Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (12.01.2016 - 02.28.2017)

SD video with stereo sound, 2:17
written and performed by Michele Jaquis and Jeremy J Quinn
edited by Michele Jaquis

This short video reflects on the shifts in the collaborators’ relationship and the complexity of bringing a third person, their child, into it. Superimposed shots of the two creating blind contour drawings of each other is accompanied by their voices reciting negotiations frequently made in the first year of their parenthood. In alternating voices each artist recites the same words, skewing gendered expectations and highlighting the equity in their roles.

For another iteration of this project, Jeremy J. Quinn and I, along with our then two year old son Milo, performed household, artistic and educational vignettes modeled on the daily routines of our new family, while the video played on a loop in the background.

Screenings:
Brood Film Festival 21st Century Parenthood in Film, Exeter Phoenix, Exeter, England, UK (09.27.16 - 11.11.16) and the Digital Institute for Early Parenthood (10.01.16 - 11.11.16)

Femmes Video Art Festival 2, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (04.06 - 04.17.16) and The Situation Room (04.27.16), Los Angeles, CA  

Exhibitions:
Emotional Labor, curated by Rotem Rozental, Platt and Borstein Galleries, American Jewish University, Los Angeles, CA, (08.25.19 - 11.01.19)

Homeeconomics, curated by the Association of Hysterical Curators as part of FAR Bazaar at Cerritos College, Norwalk CA (01.29.2017).

Consort: artwork made by couples, curated by Kristi Engle, Kelly Thompson, and Cheyanne Sauter, Art Share, Los Angeles, CA, (02.10.16-02.13.16)

accidentally slowed down iPhone video, 5:05, color, stereo

Slow dancing with my baby was shot in 2015 when my son was about two and a half months old. He wanted to be held most of the time so I took to wearing him as I walked around the house, hands free. Movement helped keep him calm, especially during “witching hour” in the early evenings, so dancing became a common practice to keep us both sane. I shot it on my phone from my point of view, somehow accidentally in slow motion, and the transformation enhanced the look of amazement on my son’s face.

three channel HD video installation with approx. 1200 nails and paintings by Mi Sung Yoon

I was invited to collaborate with one of the artists at the Downtown Art Center, a studio for adults with developmental disabilities run by the Exceptional Children's Foundation. I chose to work with Mi Sung Yoon, partly because of the way she described process as being very important to her work, but also because of the challenge posed by the fact that we didn't speak the same language (she speaks Korean and I speak English) we would have to communicate through her bi-lingual teacher/interpreter. We were asked to show each other our work and when Mi Sung viewed one of my videos, the Korean chapter of I dream in your language, she kept repeating the same phrase over and over again. I thought she was saying “seven nine” and that perhaps she was uninterested in my video and instead trying to keep in her head where she had left off counting while working on a collage a few minutes earlier. When I mentioned this to her teacher, she asked “are you sure she wasn’t saying, 'Say nigh?' This is what she says when she’s pretending to speak English.”

Mi Sung wraps yarn around a grid of nails hammered into wood panels, then adds paint and collaged paper over the thick layers of yarn. I videotaped her starting to work on a very large piece, a framed peg-board with hooks on both sides. Then spelled out three lines of text with a grid of nails that she could wrap with yarn, (what I thought she had said in the middle, the Korean transliteration on top and the English transliteration on the bottom). I imagined that her actions would result in obscuring the text, symbolically representing the layers that hinder communication between people who don’t speak the same language and between two artists, one neuro-typical and the other developmentally disabled, who are meant to collaborate. Mi Sung fell ill before the project was completed and the text made of nails stands unadorned, waiting for the imagined wrapping to occur. This text and three channel video installation mounted next to it is my portrait of Mi Sung Yoon.

Exhibitions:

Translations for Co-conspirators, curated by Eugenia Barbuc, at DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (11.12.15 - 12.23.15)

4"x6" postcard
mapping everywhere in the US that I've been in the last fifteen years

for Tucker Neel's Postcards for America project

Digital photographs documenting being asked by strangers to pose for photographs with them while traveling in India with my husband and twin sister.

HD Video, 4:16, color, stereo
Four women reenact the micro-aggressions they’ve heard while in mixed company, as on-screen text reinterprets the meanings of each statement.
written and performed by Juna Amano, Michele Jaquis, Rosalyn Myles, and Marissa Magdalena Sykes
directed, shot and edited by Michele Jaquis

exhibitions:
Intersections: LAUNCH LA Open Call, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angles, CA (08.17.2018 - 08-30.2018

screenings:
Female Identified Artists Video Screening, The Situation Room, Los Angeles, CA (02.21.2015)

11th Annual Transmodern Performance Festival, 14Karat Cabaret, Baltimore, MD (09.23.2014)

New Works Salon, Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA (09.21.2013)

22 ink jet prints on paper
17" x 11" each

Each print is made from digitally composited screenshots of Google Translate collected as the artist attempts to phonetically translate her name into languages that do not use the same characters as the English alphabet.

HD video, 3:37, color, stereo
written, directed, shot and edited by Michele Jaquis
voiceovers read by Joyce Dallal, Michele Jaquis and Jeremy J. Quinn
compositing by Florent Raffray
funded in part by a 2011 Otis College of Art and Design Faculty Development Grant

Labor and Commerce is a montage of a surreal but sustainable labor practice in which goats clear an urban hillside, mixed with the sounds of city markets, recommendations for raising goats, and recollections from farm workers. The piece was born out of my fascination of witnessing the multiplicities of people, animals, vehicles, buildings all inhabiting, working and contributing to the life and economy of the city in the context of the sustainability and labor rights movements.

screenings of single channel version:
Narrative Space, curated by OIMOA (the Optical Image Makers of America), Venice Arts, Venice, CA, 2013

site-specific installation version:
Expanded Cinema: Multiplicities, curated by Mona Kasra in conjunction with the Dallas Video Fest. Presented on LED video screens that wrap around the Omni Hotel, Dallas, TX, w/ audio simulcast on KXT 91.7 FM radio, 10.04.13

cast glass (edition of two)

Collection:
Sarah Rushford and Boris Margolin

framed photograph, wood shelf, yarn from unraveled sweater

This piece documents the sweater made by Pauline (Zuckerberg) Kahn and unraveled by her great-granddaughter (the artist) approximately four decades later. The title refers to the estrangement that has occurred between some of Pauline's descendants.

Exhibitions:

Hostile Hospitality, curated by Christy Roberts, Highland House Project, Upland, CA, 2013

30 videos in crowd sourced youtube playlist (part of Re-Creating the United States)

While participating in the In School Residency program at the Skirball Cultural Center, Michele Jaquis and Patricia Kovic (as NEIGHBORGAPBRIDGE) collaborated with students from Granada Hills Charter High School. For this particular project they asked participants to respond to their survey about who has privileged and disadvantaged status in the United States and whether or not they intend to vote in the 2012 US Presidential Election. Each survey was then turned into a script for another participant to read on camera and post to youtube, allowing them to to embody the voice of another, who then hears their voice reflected back to them. Read more about the project here.

Watch the full playlist here.

performance with the People’s Microphony Camerata
score by Jenny Donovan
interpreted by Michele Jaquis
performed live at The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, 09.14.12
reviewed by Catherine Wagley in the LA Weekly on 09.17.12.

The People's Microphony Camerata is an artist collective and experimental choir, founded by Elana Mann and Julianna Snapper, and inspired by the People's Microphone of the Occupy Movement. We performed three interpretations of Jenny Donovan's Body Packing at the launch of Elana Mann's People's Microphony Songbook, a newspaper-like publication compiling "resistance songs that explore the emergent phenomenon of The People’s Mic. The People’s Mic is a take on the human microphone, a device that allows for speakers at large assemblies or gatherings to be heard without the use of electric amplification."

For Body Packing Jenny Donovan collected the breath of people who are not granted entry into the United States and sent packages of that air to the People’s Microphony Camerata. In my interpretation of Body Packing, each performer breathes in the air one at a time, then without taking another breath, quickly reads a recalled story about borders and immigration (written by PMC members: myself, Rachel Finkelstein, Jen Hoffer, and Julie Tolentino).

More about PMC here.

3:33, color, stereo HDV loop
funded in part by a 2011 Otis College of Art and Design Faculty Development Grant

Several months after having eight friends teach me how to say "I have to tell you something, but I don't know how." in eight different languages (Japanese, German, Thai, Armenian, Korean, Farsi, Hebrew, and Spanish) I practice in the mirror, as if trying to find the best way to start a difficult conversation.

Screenings:
Female Identified Artists Video Screening, The Situation Room, Los Angeles, CA, 2015
New Works Salon, Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA, 2013

This DVD box set (edition of 3) documents a socially engaged, durational performance in which participants were invited to teach me how to say the sentence “I have to tell you something, but I don’t know how,” in various languages. Each language lesson lasted until I felt I had memorized the sentence and the instructor felt that my pronunciation and intonation was as close as it was going to get.

Contents:
8 DVD’s, 8 printed video stills and original handwritten notes from each lesson all contained in a handmade clamshell box (binder's board, book cloth, PVA glue: 12" x 9.5" x 1.5")
Disk 1 - Japanese Lesson taught by Takeshi Kobayashi, 11.05.10 (TRT: 00:42:47)
Disk 2 - German Lesson taught by Rashad Navidi, 11.05.10 (TRT: 00:29:16)
Disk 3 - Thai Lesson taught by Hataya Tubtim, 11.07.10 (TRT: 00:42:17)
Disk 4 - Armenian Lesson taught by Maria Khachatryan, 11.07.10 (TRT: 00:52:07)
Disk 5 - Korean Lesson taught by John Kim, 11.12.10 (TRT: 01:01:12)
Disk 6 - Farsi Lesson taught by Solange Petrosspour, 11.17.10 (TRT: 00:32:56)
Disk 7 - Spanish Lesson taught by Erika E. Reynoso, 01.14.11 (TRT: 00:31:31)
Disk 8 - Hebrew Lesson taught by Gil Barel, 01.14.11 (TRT: 01:17:35)

Funded in part by an Otis College of Art and Design Faculty Development Grant.
Special thanks to Linda Dare and Rebecca Chamlee of the Otis Lab Press.

Exhibitions:

Catalytic, Gatov Galleries, Cal State University Long Beach, Nov. 7 - 9, 2010

Collections:

Sarah Rushford and Boris Margolin

Otis College of Art and Design's Artists Books Collection

multi-media installation (map, paper tags, string, map pins, pens, puppets, cardboard ice cream truck, mini-fridge, ice cream, video monitor, HD media player, headphones, bench)
 

Collaboration between Michele Jaquis, Beth Peterson and Trinidad Ruiz for Debating Through the Arts (series of exhibitions, performances and workshops conceived of and organized by Jerri Allyn and Inez Bush)

Throughout the summer of 2011, journalists (puppets of Michele, Beth and Trinidad) interviewed LA residents about their neighborhoods in exchange for ice cream.

This project began a year before the great food truck movement reemerged in Los Angeles, filling the city with fusion tacos, fine food and mobile gourmet of all varieties. At that time, we envisioned a taco truck that would bring both food and opportunities to neighborhoods throughout LA, allowing residents to vote and share opinions about developments in their neighborhoods. As the project developed we realized that we cannot solve the issues of gentrification and cultural equity without knowing the specifics of each neighborhood. We want to break down the walls between neighborhoods that are divided between ethnicity and class and facilitate cultural equity by exchanging questions, answers, stories, and a little ice cream. The installation evolved throughout the summer of 2011 as our team of journalists / ice cream vendors (puppets) collected videotaped interviews from the residents of LA's diverse neighborhoods.

Exhibitions:

Debating Through the Arts, organized by Jerri Allyn and Inez Bush, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, CA, 06.18.11 - 08.28.11

Collaborative residency and exhibition at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry in Los Angeles, June 1- 25, 2011. 

Rise Industries is Jeremy J. Quinn, Michele Jaquis, Sarah Rushford, Nicole Jaquis, John Kim, Boris Margolin, Tim Devin, and Michael Feldman. Initials next to each title clarifies exactly who was involved in each specific collaboration.

We are a loose collective of artists, each with different practices, interests, methodologies, and preferred media. Our current members are practicing in Los Angeles, Boston, and India. Our major project over the years has simply been to keep up a conversation about our individual work and to launch collaborative projects, which have usually included a few Rise members working with some other creative practitioners. Strangely enough, until this residency, we had yet to put all the Rise members together on any single project. The ICI residency gives us the opportunity to bring it all together, so to speak, testing methods for collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas between our far-flung memberships.
Rise Industries will converge on the ICI, some in person, some sending works through the mail, some joining in over Skype, and we will set up an exchange of information, feeding questions in and opening up the archives to the access of those working remotely. Over the course of the residency, we will test some ideas we have been kicking around, mine the ICI collection for new directions, and test several blueprints for collaboration. We have already noticed natural pairings, or doppelgängers, in the ICI collection with some of our own artistic products and artifacts. Such propitious pairings hinge our multiple practices with the multiple realities represented through the ICI.

We will pour our interests and obsessions into the ICI vessel, and see how things mix, what congeals, and what crystallizes in the space. Our intention is to merge the combined obsessions and production methods of Rise Industries, with the labyrinth of information and objects of ICI.

We will follow the trail to see where it leads us, and mark our paths carefully.

Read and see more on the Rise Industries Blog. 

Video Design for the play written by Marcie Begleiter

Directed by David Watkins
Performed by Alexandra Ozeri, Bianca Gisslle, Heather Tyler, Robert Manning Jr., Shanti Reinhardt, Barry Saltzman, Anne Yatco, Tuddy Monteanu, Kimberly Patterson
Produced by Michael Vanderbilt
Set Design by Jeremy J. Quinn
Costume Design by Alice Tavener
Lighting Design by R. Christopher Stokes
Stage Management by Casey McGann

"... inspired by the life and untimely death of pioneering sculptor and visual artist Eva Hesse."

Performances:

Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA, 9.24.10 & 9.25.10

Press: 
Art Forum: 500 words 9.24.10
24700: News From Cal Arts 9.24.10
LAist 9.22.10

Video Design for experimental, multimedia performance written and directed by Caleb Hammond
Performed by Ceasr F. Barajas, Samantha Gregg, Susan Josephs, Tim Ottman, and Amber Skalski
Set/Video/Sound design by Rise Industries (Michele Jaquis and Jeremy Quinn)
Lighting design by R. Christopher Stokes

Walks Through Walls is a transcendent installation/performance piece investigating the human condition as an expressionistic landscape of continually disappearing experiences of agony and ecstasy. It is a portrait in motion of the ephemerality of memory and desire created by boldly physical actors enmeshed in a canvas of beautiful theatrical imagery and sound.

(Photo credit: R. Christopher Stokes - more photos here)

Performances:

Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA, June 4 & 5, 2010

Directed, Shot and Edited by Michele Jaquis
Featuring Jonggeon Lee, Alice Pedroletti, "Joe" Lu Wee Peng, Jose "Chepe" Cuadra, Nicole Jaquis, Michiko Yao, and Marjam Oskoui
Sound Mixed by Michael Feldman

i dream in your language is a series of short video portraits about language, communication, misunderstandings inspired by my envy of other people's ability to speak multiple languages. Participants were asked what it is like to communicate with people who don't speak their native language and what languages they dream in. Each interview, subtitled in both English and the second language spoken, reveals the complex negotiations of translating and interpreting what's been said and what was meant.

Screenings / Exhibitions:
Parts 1-3 exhibited at SoundWalk 10.03.09

Parts 1-4 exhibited at Kristi Engle Gallery 12.12.10 - 12.18-10

Full edit screened at MIA @ The Armory Center for the Arts 07.27.12

Featured on Our Prime Property, August 2016

embroidery on fabric with elastic, satin trim and surgical mask

Exhibitions:

You Hold it in Your Mind All the Time, curated by Sarah Rushford and Heidi Kayser, Art @ 12, Boston, MA, 8.11.11 - 9.30-11

The Pandemic Show, Curated by Elizabeta Betinski and Sandra Low, Overtones, Los Angeles, CA (11.14.09 - 12.20.09)

Collection:
Regina O'Brien

35 mm film, color, silent, 1:22
directed and performed by Michele Jaquis
cinematography and lighting by Luis Guizar

This short film was inspired by a recurring dream that the artist and her twin sister have both had for several years. In the dream she is chewing gum and no matter how much gum she attempts to remove from her mouth there is always too much still in it. Her sister's belief is that once she is given, or gives herself, permission to voice her opinion about a pressing issue, the dreams subside.

Screenings:
Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA, 2013

Space 1026 Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, 2012

Craftswoman House, Pasadena, CA 12.03.11

Exhibitions:
LA Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 5.12.12

Art @ 12, Boston, MA 8.11.11 - 9.30.11

New Puppy LA, Los Angeles, CA 3.13.10

Federal Art Project, Los Angeles, CA 8.13.09 (review)

26 light jet prints mounted on wood
10" x 8" each

Each image is a digitally manipulated scan of the artist's expired passport, inviting viewers to imagine how their perceptions of what she looks like might change based on her surname. Common surnames from around the world were chosen, one for each letter of the English alphabet, with the exception of the artist’s real last name, which is uncommon, but of French origin. The project was conceived of in response to statements commonly made to the artist, such as "You don't look Jewish," and "Your last name isn't Jewish," but also references the racial profiling of our post 9/11 era.

Exhibitions:
Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA, 2.9.14 - 4.11.14

ink jet on paper
36x48" each

Tag clouds generated with all the known surnames in the artist's family. Largest names are those that occur most frequently in the family tree. why don't i know you? contains all known names on the paternal side, and i feel so close to you all. contains all known names on the maternal side, which has much more extensive documentation.

Exhibitions:
New Puppy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2010

feature documentary, 57 min. DVD with over 60 min. of Special Features (2 disk package)
directed, shot and edited by Michele Jaquis
produced by Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh and the Center for Autism and Related Disorders
original score by Jeremy Quinn and Michael Feldman with songs by Nine More Lies and H. Hanson
sound mix by Michael Feldman

RECOVERED documents four children who have recovered from Autism Spectrum Disorder. Each child received services from the Center for Autism and Related Disorders Inc. (C.A.R.D.), including assessments, supervision, parent/teacher training and one-on-one behavioral therapy. The film presents documentation of therapy sessions along with interviews of the children who are now teenagers, their parents, therapists and the founder/executive director of C.A.R.D.. Their combined stories illuminate both their struggles and triumphs while providing hope to families of newly diagnosed children that recovery is indeed possible. Disk 2 includes special features designed to educate families who are navigating the world of autism and autism treatment.

Screenings:

available on Amazon

2014 We Speak Here online film festival, www.cultureunplugged.com
2010 Autism Bridges, Maui, HI
Families for Effective Autism Treatment - North Texas (FEAT-NT) Autism Conference, Plano, TX
2009 Back To School Autism/Aspergers Conference, Pasadena, CA
Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
ReelHeART International Film Festival, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Autism House National Conference, Albany, New Zealand
Northwest Louisiana Autism Conference & Expo, Shreveport, LA
AutismOne 2009 Conference, Chicago, IL
3rd Annual Anaheim Autism/Asperger’s Conference, Anaheim, CA
2008 Victoria Independent Film Festival, Sebastapol, Australia
Northwest Area Education Agency, Sioux City, IA
National Autism Conference, Weston, FL
The Director’s Chair Film Festival, Staten Island, NY (Best Documentary Award)
Defeat Autism Now (DAN) Conference, San Diego, CA
92Y Tribeca, New York, NY
Folino Theater, Chapman University, Orange, CA (review, TV coverage)
Hyatt Regency, Austin, TX
Children’s Hospital Central CA, Madera, CA
Campbell Community Center, Campbell, CA
Back To School Autism/Aspergers Conference, Pasadena, CA
The Nile Theater, Bakersfield, CA (TV coverage)
Hope Academy, Greenville, SC
Silver Screen Theater/Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, CA (interview, review)

lightjet prints (mounted on sintra) and videos using scanned photos from family albums and super 8 film and VHS home movies transferred to DV.

Exhibitions:
Project 210, Pasadena, CA, 11.05.09 - 11.28.09
Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles, CA, 11.29.08 - 12.07.08.
LAAA/Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, 9.7.07 - 10.5.07
South La Brea Gallery, Inglewood, CA 3.16.07 - 4.7.07

site specific installation with spray foam insulation and stereo sound (35:00 loop) 

Collaboration with Sophia Allison, Neil Fenn, Sharon Kagan, Arthur Pembleton and Meeson Pae Yang under the guidance of Tim Hawkinson.

As viewers navigate the space they hear two computerized voices reciting knitting instructions, which sound both familiar and cryptic.

Exhibitions:
Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA 2006

Collection:
Doug Christmas, ACE Gallery

single channel video installation with postcards, pens, stamps, table, chair and mail bins

Selichot is a period during the Jewish High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) in which prayers of forgiveness are made. It is believed that in order for G-d to forgive, first one must obtain forgiveness from the people who have been wronged, however there is no duty to forgive. Recognizing that both the offender and the offended have work to do in this process, this installation asks participants to let go of their grudges by addressing a postcard and completing the sentence “I forgive you for…” then deciding whether or not the mail it to the intended recipient.

Exhibitions: 
Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA (4.1.06 - 4.30.06)

Armory Northwest, Pasadena, CA (10.7.05 - 12.11.05)

Interchange 3, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA (6.04.05)

DVD (color, stereo, 10 min loop) projection onto plexiglas (64” x 48”) with two pairs of headphones 

Two viewers at a time can stand on either side of the video projected onto the floor while listening on headphones that hang from the ceiling. The video combines reverse motion, p.o.v. shots of hands taking apart a telephone, by either smashing it or carefully dismantling it. These actions are metaphors not only for the futile attempt to restore relationships that do not want to be restored, but also for breaking the cycle of anger and miscommunication that can plague a family.

Exhibitions:
Track 16, Santa Monica, CA, 2006
South La Brea Gallery, Inglewood, CA, 2005
 

15 min. bi-coastal sound performance

Directed and Orchestrated by Michele Jaquis and Jeremy J. Quinn (as Rise Industries) 
Performed by Jessica Catron (Los Angeles) cello, Tim Devin (Boston) storytelling, Jeremy Drake (Los Angeles) electric guitar phase, Caleb Hammond (Boston) interactive reading of arranged text using source material from William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Nate Quinn (Boston) alto and soprano saxophone, Sara Schoenbeck (Los Angeles) bassoon and sonai, and Rich West (Los Angeles) percussion.

Performers called one of three phone lines at the gallery at predetermined times. Participants in the audience answer one of fifteen telephones attached to these phone lines in order to hear each performance. The piece unexpectedly evolved into three stages: audience members listening to performers, some audience members talking on the phone while others listened to performers, and finally audience members only talking to each other on the phone resulting in chaos until the phones lines were unplugged.

Performances:
Interchange 2, curated by D. Jean Hester, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, 2004

5 channel audio installation or audio CD with 5 mp3 files and CD insert/booklet (duration: 4:14:29)

featuring Michele Jaquis in conversation with Ginny Cook, Heather Rush, Nicole Jaquis, Gina Stepaniuk, and Holly Tempo, 

Both the installation and the CD documents conversations between the artist and other women who grew up without their biological fathers. Viewers sit at one of 5 tables in pairs. They listen with headphones while sharing the CD player on the table between them. This positions the viewer as if in the midst of a conversation.

Exhibitions:
Sound Walk, Long Beach, CA, 08.20.05

Listen to audio excerpts.

installation with recliner chair, telephone table, audio CD and slide show (dimensions variable)

The viewer sits in “dad’s chair” to watch the slide show of collected family photographs, none of which include fathers. Meanwhile an audio CD plays several answering machine messages from my father all starting with “Hey. It’s your old man...” The father’s presence in the audio and his complete absence in the family photos are juxtaposed to provide insight into the nature of the relationship between father and child.

Exhibitions:
Off the Map, curated by Jane Castillo, Corina Gamma and Amy Robinson, private home, Los Angeles, CA (catalog), 2005
Identification, curated by Carol Es, Highways Performance Space and Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2004
private home, 

single channel video installation with sand and swing (dimensions variable)

One video clip is split into three frames, each creating three different perspectives on an un-staged event, children playing with their father at the beach. The video is projected onto the back wall of the installation, while the floor is covered with sand and a swing hangs from the ceiling, inviting the viewer to participate.

Exhibitions:
The Office, Huntington Beach (solo show), 2003

collaboration with Jeremy J. Quinn
two channel video installation with two 13” TV/VCRs and two chairs (12:00 silent loop)

In this two-channel installation originally designed for an office lobby/waiting room, video documentation of a chess game has been edited so that viewers see each player only as they wait for their turn. The chessboard serves as a visual clock emphasizing the passage of time.

Exhibitions:

Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, 2002
LAAA @ Patricia Correia Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2002

three channel video /sound installation projected onto separate screens
3 screens: steel rod, muslin, steel cable, 5’ x 3.75’ each
3 VCRs, 3 video projectors, 6 stereo speakers, video/audio cable, 3 video loops (duration varies)

Each video is projected simultaneously onto three large screens hung in a triangular formation.  In each video loop there is a sense of both desperation and futility - hands tear a seam in piece of fabric only to resew it again, a woman scrubs old children's sneakers in a metal wash basin, red balloons are inflated only to immediately pop.  Something has been destroyed, be it physical or emotional, and every attempt to resolve the situation is foiled.

Exhibitions:
The Hatch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2001 (solo)

interactive installation with 7 jigsaw puzzles, tables and chairs (dimensions variable)

I asked close friends and family members to write about their most significant separation and had each story printed as a jig saw puzzle.  The viewer is invited to sit down at tables and put the puzzles back together as a symbolic reconnection.

Exhibitions:
LAAA/Gallery 825 - South Gallery (solo), 2002

cast bronze, laser prints on paper, fabric, ink can
ink can: 4” diameter x 2 1/2” tall  
vertebrae: life size (variable)

One of twenty-four vertebrae sent to members of my support system through the U.S.P.S. Vertebrae were cast in bronze from originals modeled in wax.

two channel video / sound installation
dimensions variable, 13 min continuous loop

This piece has been shown as separate projections onto opposite walls in an enclosed space, as well as on two wall-mounted video monitors hung at opposite ends of a hallway. The two tapes show opposing views of separate airport arrival gates. The soundtrack consists of multiple voices making statements about longing and slippage in communication. The viewer is caught in between two states: waiting for someone to arrive and hoping someone is there to meet them upon their arrival. In both instances the meeting never occurs.

Exhibitions:
The Hatch Gallery (solo) , Los Angeles, CA10.26.01 - 11.4.01
The RISD Museum (group MFA show), Providence, RI 5.19.00 - 6.6.00

continuous video loop with stereo sound

A series of people drink water out of the artist's hands. The point of view shot, creates a desire of the viewer to be both giver and receiver of this vital fluid.

Exhibitions / Screenings:
Flux Factory, New York 10.24.03 - 10.26.03
Remote Lounge, New York 4.10.03
Quotidian Gallery, San Francisco 8.22.02 - 9.19.02
The LAtch Gallery, Los Angeles 5.18.02
Video 825, Los Angeles 6.28.01
Palm Beach ICA, Lake Worth, FL 7.14.01 - 8.19.01
Gallery 825 10.21.00 - 11.17.00
Parsons Gallery, New York 1.26.00 - 2.25.00
Woods Gerry Gallery/RISD, Providence 11.4.99 - 11.21.99

video loop projected onto 1000 piece puzzle with stereo sound, wooden table, paint
table: 31” x 26” x 20”

A video of dishes and glasses being thrown onto the floor is projected onto a table top made of a white jigsaw puzzle. The point of view shot places the audience as if they are the ones throwing the objects. The slow motion encourages them to pay close attention to the trajectory of the broken pieces while something like a combination of thunder and wind chimes (slowed down sync sound) plays through the stereo speakers mounted in the ceiling above.

Exhibitions:
Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI, 2000

drywall, wood, paint, hardware, floor tiles, step ladder, 3” video monitor, VCR, video loop

Exhibitions:
Mobius, Boston, MA, 1999

wood, steel, rubber, fabric, cotton stuffing, 3” video monitor, VCR, video loop

Viewers sit at a table and place their hands inside two rubber holes. Inside their hands are surrounded by soft cushiony fabric. As they lean over to peer through the peep hole in the top of the table, perhaps expecting to see their own hands, they watch a video of the artist's hands repeatedly squeezing a ball of clay in an attempt to symbolically make rocks to be left on gravestones (as is the Jewish tradition). 

Exhibitions:
Market House Gallery (three person), Providence, RI, 1998

performance with 71 kitchen and butcher knives and gauze bandages
approx. duration: 20min.

Silently, the artist wrapped each knife with the gauze. This was performed as a mourning ritual for a close friend (Adam Diehl) who was stabbed to death in 1996.

Performances:
Evening of Performance, Hartford Art School, West Hartford, CT, 1998

installation with muslin, embroidery floss, twigs and dirt
dimensions variable

As viewers walk amongst the 71 "hanging burials," the sculptures sway slightly allowing dirt to gradually drop on to the floor through slits cut into the bottom the fabric sacks. The installation memorializes the 1996 death of her friend, Adam Diehl, and attempts to make physical the amount of times he was stabbed during a botched convenient store robbery.

Exhibitions:
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, 1998

installation with unfired clay, steel stool, and steel and plaster wedging table (dimensions variable)

This installation indexes the process of preparing to make something out of clay, but never actually making anything, over and over again.

welded steel, VCR, video monitor, video loop with stereo sound
approximately 7' tall x 5' diameter

Viewers peer inside the cracks of the structure in order to the watch the video of its making. The size and shape of the structure was determined by how far I could reach while welding the structure around myself until I was contained.

Exhibitions:
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, 1997
Taub Hall Gallery (three person BFA show), Hartford Art School, West Hartford, CT, 1997