- This event has passed.
SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY: i would’ve said goodbye if i thought you loved me back
October 6, 2021– February 14, 2022
Opening Wednesday, October 6, 2021 in Squeaky Wheel’s window gallery and online
On view through February 14, 2022
Click here to access the online project
Squeaky Wheel is excited to present a solo exhibition and web project by artist and poet SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY.
A memory stone and love letter, i would’ve said goodbye if i thought you loved me back is a four channel realtime multimedia installation and part two of HOLLOWAY’s DOG WHISTLE series. Using the series’ signature blue light and heavy bold text, the work thinks through the aesthetics of accumulation and the vocabulary of loss using poetry and 3D objects that pile up and overflow. Each object on screen is a manipulation of a digital scan of an item that once held significance in the artist’s life and will be destroyed on a continuous loop for the duration of the installation. Parallel to the window installation, i would’ve said goodbye if i thought you loved me back is also accessible at home via the web and is programmed to evolve with audience participation through Valentine’s Day 2022. The exhibition will be accompanied by a newly commissioned essay on the artists work by Camille Bacon. Web development support provided by Nick Briz.
The artist invites you to submit photos of your own objects to be part of the work. These can be photographs of things you no longer have, want, or feel connected to, that remind you of those you can no longer love. You can send the photograph as a text message to the number (716) 650-0687 or via email to youlovedmeback@gmail.com . Please note that photos may be modified for privacy and technical purposes (such as the removal of identifiable faces.)
Public programs
Wednesday, October 6, 7 pm ET
Virtual artist talk: SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY and Camille Bacon. Register here.
Wednesday, February 9–14, 2022
Online project: [ E N | C L O S I N G ]. Register here.
Monday, February 14, 2022, 6:00 pm ET
PLASMA: Virtual artist talk with SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY. Presented by the Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo SUNY. More information here.
About the artist and contributors
SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY is a new media artist and poet. Through works of video installation, software, and real-time performance, her work often critically engages the technical language of instruction, especially the aesthetics and mechanics of practices from queer feminist BDSM communities, to direct viewers to read, play, or listen their way through narratives that guide them in and out of visceral memories, asking them to confront intense emotions like desire, shame, or regret, and to employ them as mechanisms to navigate through and/or away from abuses of power. She has spoken and exhibited work internationally in spaces like The New Museum (NYC), The Kitchen (NYC), The Time-Based Art Festival (Portland), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Hebbel am Ufer HAU (Berlin), and NTS Radio (London). SHAWNÉ was a 20-21 Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Queer Theatre & Performance Resident as well as a resident at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Creative Exchange Lab.
Camille Bacon is a Chicago-based critic and writer who recently graduated from Smith College in Northampton, MA, and is crafting a “sweet Black writing life,” as inspired by the words of poet Nikky Finney.
Nick Briz is an internationally recognized new-media artist, educator and organizer. His work investigates the promises and perils of living in an increasingly digital and networked world. He is an active participant in various online communities and conversations including glitch art, net art, remix culture, digital literacy, hacktivism and digital rights. He’s co-founder of netizen.org a nonprofit focused on digital literacy and digital culture, he’s Associate Professor Adjunct at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer at the University of Chicago, and a freelance Creative Technologist.
This program was funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Image: SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, dog-whistle-unity-still_1unfinished-rose-obj+1petal-(slow)spawn.png, unity still, 2019