dana washington-queen: Resume At the Point of Interruption

OVERVIEW

Lens-based artist dana washington-queen (b. 1985) uses writing and video-making as an inquiry into freedom and escape. What are freedom’s possibilities? Where can it be found; what does it feel like? These questions, among others, animate the video installations, collages, and sculptures that constitute Resume at the Point of Interruption.
 
The title of this exhibition is taken from the National Basketball Association rulebook, section XIV, which stipulates that officials can suspend a game for unusual circumstances. The game must then resume where the basketball was at the point of interruption. washington-queen, who grew up playing sports, situates the iconography of basketball in histories both deep and personal to see how the laboring, spectacularized, and surveilled Black body functions for different gazes—and performs minor, fugitive, and creative acts of freedom at the same time.

washington-queen’s text “The Black Noetic” (on view here) is the conceptual springboard for all of the presented works. This text was inspired in part by poet Kevin Young’s statement that “the fabric of black life has often meant its very fabrication, making a way out of no way, and making it up as you go along.” Ultimately, the exhibition is an experimental portrait of improvisatory Black life, a moving portrait that traces a continuum of interruption, suspension, and possible recovery.

Documentation of all works and select videos will also be accessible on thepointofinterruption.com.

Resume at the Point of Interruption was curated by Enjoli Moon.

This exhibition is supported by the Ellsworth Kelly Award, made possible by the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

dana washington-queen (b. 1985) is a nonbinary poet, photographer, filmmaker, and video artist using narrative storytelling to explore blackness, gender, and systems of power. Their research and practice bring documentary and experimental modes of production into dialogue as a study on ways of being and cultural knowledge production. They hold a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from University of California San Diego, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from California State University Long Beach.

washington-queen has exhibited works at Visible Records, Jeffrey Deitch, Springsteen Gallery, 98 Orchard, Art + Practice, Gallery at Calit2, and San Diego Art Institute. Their films and videos have received selections from BlackStar Film Festival, Outfest Fusion LGBT People of Color Film Festival, DTLA Film Festival, Afrikana Independent Film Festival, Toronto Short Film Festival, and Los Angeles Diversity Film Festival.