2022 Marcus Festival: Claiming Space

This summer, Montalvo celebrates its public park as a space of belonging for all. The works presented on the grounds allow the historic property to unfold our histories as we create space to honor the bodies and stories that have not been represented in classical historic American gardens.

The celebration will include performances by Lucas Artists Fellows Ali Asgar Tara, Margaret Laurena Kemp, and Ayako Kato, joined by Darling Shear and Tuli Bera. Poets Arlene Biala, ASHA, Keana Aguila Labra, Quynh-Mai Nguyen, Lorenz Dumuk, and Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Tshaka Campbell will share new works created in response to the exhibition. The tone will be set by DJ Chale Brown, and the evening will close with video projections by Lucas Artists Fellow TT Takemoto.

Exhibiting artists Cassils, Pilar Agüero-Esparza, Oliver Lee Jackson, and Wanxin Zhang will be on site to celebrate the event, and visitors will be invited to tour the exhibited works, experience the live performances, and leave their own mark in a community-created project. Enjoy food from our visiting food trucks and grab a drink at our bar (credit card only).

The exhibition Claiming Space: Refiguring the Body in Landscape (on view through October 15) brings together a diverse array of works on loan and new commissions that explore the representation of the body as political studies, sites of vulnerability and exchange, formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations. In public, bodies of color, disabled bodies, female identifying, trans and non-binary bodies are policed and surveyed; while at the same time they are not typically represented in our shared civic spaces. The assembled works invite viewers to consider: What does it mean for our bodies to feel grounded and safe in public? To feel seen? To be represented? To belong?

No parking on site.

Free shuttle service to the event will be available from West Valley College, Parking Lot 1 (entrance on Allendale Avenue).

Rideshare (Taxi/Lyft/Uber) drop-offs will be allowed, but no pick-ups. If you are using a rideshare service, please take the shuttle to West Valley when you depart and call from there.

While masking and vaccines are not required at this event, we ask that all guests take precautions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Masks are highly recommended at all times while indoors and while riding the shuttles, and are welcome for all who feel more comfortable wearing one. If you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, we ask that you remain home.

This exhibition is made possible through the support of our lead sponsor, the Marcus Family Foundation. Additional support generously provided by the Jo and Barry Ariko Fund for Artistic Programs and Sally Lucas.

to 3Arts, Chopsticks Alley Art, The Confederation of Ohlone People, and the Pajaro Valley Ohlone Indian Council for their support of this event.

Timeline:

6:15pm: First shuttles depart from West Valley College

6:30pm: DJ Chale Brown (Great Lawn)

7pm: Poetry Set (Great Lawn)

• ASHA
• Keana Aguila Labra
• Arlene Biala
• Lorenz Dumuk
• Tshaka Campbell

7:30-9:30pm: Margaret Laurena Kemp presents It’s All About Love: Mixtape for the Landscape (Villa Solarium)

7:30pm: LUCA/Chromosome Dance (Great Lawn)

• Restoring the memories of the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) embedded in our cells, dancers Ayako Kato, Darling Shear, and Tuli Bera engage and embrace the beauty of life to celebrate its dignity and equity. Casting out the hidden and invisible spirals in our body and nature, they start to open up pathways through awareness, acknowledgement, affirmation, allowance, and endless hope to coexist in balance. This piece is created as a part of LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III, planned to premier in October 2022 in Chicago. Music by Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman.

8-8:30pm: Ali Asgar Tara, “A Private View” (Oval Garden)

• This approximately 30-minute experience revolves around a culturally exotic political drag queen and their failed attempt at cooking a curry, responding and interacting with visitors by incorporating voice recording, found and collected video from TV reporting, and a pop music reference when a miserable drag queen also appears and wraps herself into a sharee. At once a protest, a conversation, and a smelly cooking show, “A Private View” is an invitation to gaze and heal through the eyes of an other.

8pm: DJ Chale Brown (Great Lawn)

8:30pm: Poetry Set (Charmaine’s Garden Terrace)

• Quynh-Mai Nguyen
• Tshaka Campbell
• Keana Aguila Labra

8:45-9:30pm: Looping video projections by TT Takemoto (Villa Façade)

• Ever Wanting (For Margaret Chung): Exhibition Version, 2021, 5:55 min, loop, hand-processed 16mm, 35mm film emulsion, ink, paint, glue, tape, found footage, digital video
• On the Line: 2018, 6:43min, hand-processed 8mm/16mm, paint, found footage, digital video 

9pm: Final shuttle from West Valley College to Montalvo

9:30pm: Final shuttle departs Montalvo to West Valley College

Ongoing:

• Hands-on art activities in the Italianate Garden & on Charmaine’s Garden Terrace
• Grab a soft drink, beer, or glass of wine at our bar (credit card only) on the Villa veranda
• Food trucks The Waffle Roost and Mi Casa Agave in Parking Lot 2 (on the right side of the Villa)