Produced as a limited edition fundraiser publication, the zine features an interview with the artist, contributions by TWAH workshop participants Angi Brzycki, Jessica Fee, Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, R. Kauff, Arin Krausz, Julia Mande, Renée Reizman, Bridgid Ryan, Daviel Shy, Soffia Stiassni, Kristof Trakal, Annabel Turrado, Udita Upadhyaya and a custom risograph cover designed by Anni Puolakka. For the TWAH writing workshop at NAVEL, Ala-Ruona invited trans-, non-binary, queer people and women to come together for thinking, dreaming and writing together about possible futures and worlds to come. The aim was to look for pleasure and enjoyment in writing as tools for naming and exploring the endless multiplicity, fluidity and transformation of needs, sexuality and gender, gaining autonomy and creating queer futures.
Produced in conjunction with Ana Teo Ala-Ruona TWAH (These Worlds Are Here)
Exhibition Description:
Helsinki-based performance and visual artist Ana Teo Ala-Ruona will be in residence in Los Angeles for the month of July, producing a writing workshop, an exhibition and a performance. They are interested in generating new forms of collectivity, interdependence and futurities in artistic practice, while creating space for silenced, unheard or non-normative, queer and trans narratives and experiences. Drawing from techniques found in the fields of feminist pedagogy, contemporary performance and theater, activism, and literature, they create collaborative strategies for feminist speculative fiction in lived practice. Creating a context for collective sensitivities, affects and formations to perform, their work takes the form of speech performances, performative installations, workshops, a free school and various types of open events, often produced in partnership with fellow artists and working groups.
As part of their residency, Ala-Ruona will run a writing workshop titled TWAH (=These Worlds Are Here) for trans, nonbinary, queer people and women that will culminate in an intimate audio installation within Gas. Developed at NAVEL, Ala-Ruona’s workshop allows participants to LARP (live action role play) queer worlds as they write, asking them to experience and embody these imagined worlds at the moment of writing. Ala-Ruona says, “Writing is a political tool for naming, re-naming, making visible, audible and felt the dreams that we care for. Writing is also a vehicle—it moves, touches, orientates and re-orients us.” A chorus of words, both written and spoken, by workshop attendees will be the basis of the exhibition in Gas’s truck gallery.
ABOUT GAS
Located in a truck gallery parked around Los Angeles and online, Gas is a mobile, autonomous, experimental and networked platform for contemporary art.
Gas collaborates closely with artists to create experiences that foster community and connection while imagining alternative forms of cultural and critical production. The space’s inherently itinerant format reflects the fluidity of twenty-first century culture and art practice, while also allowing considerable independence and creative freedom in terms of concept, site, format, audience, and engagement. Gas offers an opportunity to rethink why, where and how we view art, whether the encounter happens while surfing the web or driving around Los Angeles, a city defined by its sprawl and car culture.
Each season, Gas presents one thematic exhibition that includes works in the gallery and online. All shows include a fundraiser edition and a zine publication.
