ARTS Southeast is pleased to host
WILLIAM FRANCO & MIKI SEIFERT
in the on::View residency from
OCTOBER 10th - November 2nd, 2024.
Artist Talk:
Saturday, October 19th at 2PM
Project Finale:
Friday, November 2nd from 5 - 9PM in conjunction with Dia de Muertos, Art on Bull and First Fridays in Starland
About the Project:
While in Residence at ARTS Southeast, Franco and Seifert will continue work on their project Azucar/Sugar, which explores the connection between the globalization of sugar and colonization. Drawn toward this work through Franco's Zapotec and Mixtec culture, they will research Savannah's history of refining sugar, and how Georgia played a critical part in sugar’s history in the Americas. As their Residency project will align with Dia de Muertos, they will also create an ofrenda with sugar skulls in the Residency studio, to be featured in their Project Finale during Art on Bull on Friday, November 1st from 5-9PM during First Fridays in Starland.
About the Artist:
William Franco (San Diego, CA) is a border crosser, choosing the best form and media to embody his performative ideas. His multi-disciplinary approach grows out his collaboration with the original members of The Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo. Franco is best known for “The Illustrated Chicano,” his interactive installation on being a Chicano in diaspora, and mounting the HAKO Virtual Projection Mapping Festival during the COVID pandemic. He has worked as the AV specialist at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, tutor and theatre technician at Victoria University of Wellington, a location sound mixer on independent features and documentaries in Los Angeles, and a customer cabinet maker in San Diego.
Miki Seifert (Bethlehem, PA): Miki Seifert’s body of work ranges from performances, installations and videos with her collaborator William Franco to solo work of mixed media paintings to writing and artbooks. Her movement training (Butoh, contact improvisation, ballet, circus arts and gymnastics) imbues her work with flow, timing, placement, and a balance between the improvised and the choreographed. Her introduction to installation art was collaborating with David Avalos, Deborah Small and William Franco on the video “Ramona: birth of mis-ce-ge-NATION”, which was included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, “Made in California: Best Art of the 20th Century.” She is best known for “He rawe tona kakahu/She wore a becoming dress”, a Butoh performance about gender and colonization. Her performative research is published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance and the Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies.
Franco and Seifert are the co-founders and artistic directors of With Lime, an artist collective that creates performances, installations and projections that explore the interface between cultures and/or technology. As part of their vision of the arts as a force for personal and societal transformation, they conduct research to expand performative methodologies and practices. Franco and Seifert’s artistic multilinguality allows the work of With Lime to cross the borders between visual, media, dance and theatre arts. With Lime’s work has been in galleries, museums and film festivals around the world.
