Alum Sofia Cordova GS'05 in a two person exhibit, I perceive the other and lose myself.
Montrose gallery She Works Flexible pairs artists Sofia Cordova and Autumn Knight in I perceive the other and lose myself, an exploration of erasure, memory, laughter and survival explored through multimedia installations and a series of accompanying performances.
San Francisco-based multimedia performance artist Sofia Cordova creates mesmerizing and intimate performances that captivate the audience with the sensual nature of what she is conjuring on stage and the apocalyptic nature of the story told. In this new work, performing from behind a screen mimicking the sail of a ship, Cordova (performing as La Propheta) will dance and sing tale of humanity’s destiny 1000 years in the future. Her songs, created in collaboration with artist and partner, Matthew Kirkland, detail a Spanish world where dances are held on cement slabs, brackish waters consume our land and life is lived in a perilous state of not-belonging. Through the washing away of the old and the renegotiating of our species relationship to the planet, we are given the opportunity to start anew not just in how we relate to the earth but to each other.
Houston-based performance artist Autumn Knight, whose poetic and viscerally engaging multimedia work enthralls with honesty and power, creates a collaborative multimedia structure to explore the relationship between stand-up comedy and music in Black American artistic and entertainment traditions. Through stand-up performances, lectures, cinema and an interdisciplinary presentation of sound art, Knight takes us on a fascinating tour of the Black American economies of survival. Drawing on the rich history of vaudeville acts, the political usages of African-American comedy, music and contemporary pop culture crossovers, Knight will work with two sound designers and DJs – Philadelphia-based Mekeva McNeil and Houston’s own Jason Woods (Flash Gordon Parks) – to create a one of a kind sonic experience. Knight will have events during the run of the show at the gallery. Please visit sheworksflexible.com for more information.
Born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, Sofia Córdova received her BFA from St. John’s University in Queens, NY in 2006, and her MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2010.
Though beginning her career as a [photographer Cordova’s work has expanded to include performance, video, and installation. As part of the project Baby, Remember My Name, she created a series of music videos to accompany a concept album made under the pseudonym ChuCha Santamaría. These works draw from the conventions and pictorial language of mainstream music videos, while creating a narrative surrounding specific issues of the Caribbean diaspora and identity politics. Córdova continues to work in photography separately from her ChuCha Santamaria project most recently with the creation of Infinite Encyclopedia/Enciclopedia Infinita, a project which aims for the categorically impossible: to be an encyclopedic catalogue of “everything.”
Cordova has performed at SFMOMA, SomArts and Galeria De La Raza among others. Her work has been exhibited at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, AMOA/Art House, Southern Exposure, Queen’s Nails, The International Center of Photography as well as other venues internationally. She was awarded the 2014-2015 Kala Fellowship and her work is part of Pier 24’s permanent collection.