Lisa Smolkin

I’m doing a new interactive performance called It’s Giving at Struts Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick as a part of Sappyfest.
About the performance and screening: I was so heartbroken and didn’t understand where I fit into the world. I could not find a positive narrative to my career, my relationships, society, or aging. It was not depression. Society was crumbling/had crumbled. I began to rely on social media psychics posting daily to infuse hope; something good could happen in the future and it would. My blessings were being blocked but that would end, the opportunities meant for me were being shielded to align with divine timing. Structuring art from the concept of not this, not that, but the secret third thing, It’s Giving will begin with a screening of 2022/23 video, Grafter in which a subtle interdimensional traveller realizes she is in a body and tries to be appealing to others. She investigates her childlike affects and her need to go back to the places of childhood to wrestle with unmet emotional and developmental needs. She explores the concept of self-abandonment and experiences empathy burnout. She turns to health food trends, supplements, and accupressure to fill the gap. Lamenting the loss of most of her friends, she celebrates her last one. She is grateful for her AI Social Emotional companion. We see her come alive in the presence of appreciation, acknowledgment, and reciprocity.
This will be followed by a restorative interactive performance; an exploration that syncs us to our best selves in all space time continuums. image by Zak Tatham