t r a n s f o r m e r

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Victoria Reis/Georgie Payne October 15, 2018 202.483.1102 or [email protected]

Transformer presents:

UNSETTLED - An Afternoon of Performance Art Saturday, November 3, 2018, 3-7pm At Superfine! The Fair Union Market, Dock 5 Event Space 1309 5th Street Northeast, Washington, DC

Transformer is pleased to present UNSETTLED – a performance art series curated for Superfine! The Fair by Victoria Reis, Founder and Director of Transformer. UNSETTLED features performances by a select group of leading DC based emerging artists – Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj, and Tsedaye Makonnen – each of whom are pushing performance art forward with their innovative, interdisciplinary work.

Previously presented in Miami and New York, with upcoming manifestations in Los Angeles, Superfine! The Fair – created in 2015 by James Miille, an artist, and Alex Mitow, an arts entrepreneur – makes its DC premiere October 31 to November 4, 2018 at Union Market’s Dock 5 event space, featuring 300 visual artists from DC and beyond who will present new contemporary artwork throughout 70+ curated booths. Superfine! also features emerging collector events, tours, film screenings and panels. https://superfine.world/

Always seeking new platforms to connect & promote DC based emerging artists with their peers and supporters, and new opportunities to increase dialogue among audiences about innovative contemporary art practices, Transformer is excited to present UNSETTLED at Superfine! UNSETTLED curator and Executive & Artistic Director of Transformer Victoria Reis states: “Superfine! at Union Market’s Dock 5 presents an opportunity for Transformer to advance our partnership based mission, expand our network, and further engage with a growing new demographic of DC art collectors and contemporary art enthusiasts. UNSETTLED highlights a select group of dynamic, DC based emerging artists at the forefront of quickly evolving performance art practice, who are representative of the vibrant creative energy Transformer works to cultivate throughout our exhibitions and programs.”

Addressing themes of migration, cultural, racial, sexual and gender identity, and communication, among others, UNSETTLED artists Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj, and Tsedaye Makonnen will each present approximately 40 minute long ‘roaming ‘performances, consecutively, between 3-7pm on Saturday, November 3 throughout the Superfine! Dock 5 space. Some performances may overlap.

UNSETTLED Artist Bios:

Hoesy Corona (b.1986. ) lives and works in , MD. He is a multidisciplinary artist who has shown compelling works and inventive sculptures fitted to the human body internationally in , , and the USA at various institutional, private, public and underground venues, including: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; The ; The Walters ; The Peale Museum; Transformer DC; Athens School of Fine Arts; The Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival; Current Space; VisArts; and the Transmodern Festival. In addition to his studio practice, Corona is the founding co-director of Labbodies, an arts organization that creates opportunities for new media and performance artists to exhibit their work. Recent honors include a Tulsa Artist Fellowship 2019-2020; a Merriweather District Artist in Residence 2018; a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellowship 2017-2018; an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant administered by The Contemporary 2017; a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation's Ruby's Project Grant in Visual Art 2016-17; and a Light City public art commission in 2017. 1404 P Street NW Washington, DC 20005 | 202.483.1102 | www.transformerdc.org

t r a n s f o r m e r

Rex (Alexandra) Delafkaran is an Iranian-American interdisciplinary artist, dancer and curator from California, currently based in Washington, DC. She uses movement and objects to explore the rich tensions between bodies, intimacy, language and identities. She received her degree in Ceramics and Performance Art from the San Francisco Art Institute, and has exhibited in Southern Exposure Gallery, Diego Rivera Gallery, Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Panoply Performance Lab, Transformer and others. While working at Hamiltonian Gallery as Gallery Manager and teaching at the Smith Center for Healing & the Arts, Rex continues to perform, write and exhibit, making sculpture out of Red Dirt Studios, Mt. Rainier, MD.

MAPS GLOVER creates work inspired by human behavior and observation. He visualizes how time affects behavior and observation of behavior alters perspective. He constructs portals in which the characters he creates exist and experience the world around them, often in ways that seem unnatural to the viewer. Maps recently performed as the co-lead role of Lyan, in the performance The Landing, an immersive piece of speculative fiction conveyed through the mediums of sound, movement and video at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Maps also designed the choreography and costumes. Maps curated What We Leave Behind: In the Name of Art, an exhibition and performance art series at Transformer DC September/October 2018.

Questioning and rebelling against institutional ideas of race, gender and queerness, Kunj uses ritual performance and structure to explore the notion of no-identity versus new-identity. He received his bachelor’s degree in anthropology and studio art from the University of , and has performed at Grace Exhibition Space in New York, Transformer DC, The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, EMP Collective in Maryland, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and Platforms Project in Athens, Greece.

Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist that explores the universality, resilience and contradictions found in blackness across borders. She is the 2018 DC Public Library Maker-in- Residence. She has performed at Art Basel Miami, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, El Museo del Barrio, Pratt Film Institute, Queens Museum, Festival International d’Art Performance in Martinique, Chale Wote Street Art Festival in Ghana and more. This summer she completed a residency at El Anatsui Studios in Nsukka, Nigeria and traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where she performed and connected with many of the artists and institutions there. She is currently showing sculptural work in the exhibition Familiar Boundaries, Infinite Possibilities curated by Kilolo Luckett at the August Wilson Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA.

Image credits: Hoesy Corona, 2018, Platforms Projects Art Fair, Athens Greece; Rex Delafkaran, 2018 Transformer Siren Arts Residency, Asbury Park, NJ; Maps Glover, 2018, What We Leave Behind: In the Name of Art, Transformer, DC; Kunj, 2017, ShadowCasters, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, DC; Tsedaye Makonnen, 2018, Crowning Series, Nigeria, Edition 3, photographers Emeka Egwuibe and Eze Chineye. ______t r a n s f o r m e r is a Washington, DC based 501 (c) 3 non-profit, artist-centered visual arts organization, that connects & promotes emerging artists within local, national and international contexts. Through innovative exhibitions and program partnerships, we support and present what is happening now and next in contemporary visual art. Transformer's mission is to provide a consistent, supportive, and professional platform for emerging artists, to explore and present experimental artistic concepts, to build audiences for artists' work and advance their careers, and to increase dialogue, understanding, and audiences for new & best contemporary art practices. Transformer's 2018/2019 Exhibition Series and programs are supported by: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The CrossCurrents Foundation, The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities/NEA, The Robert Lehman Foundation, The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, SunTrust, The National Endowment for the Arts' ArtWorks & Creativity Connects Programs, and The Visionary Friends of Transformer. 1404 P Street NW Washington, DC 20005 | 202.483.1102 | www.transformerdc.org