HANGERS 101 & a LITANY of HASHTAGS
Hangers 101 & a Litany of Hashtags is a commentary on the divisive socio-political climate that engulfed the nation and caused worldwide concern with the election and four years in power of Donald Trump. This work bridges the realms of audience participation, performance, and social activism through multimedia – culminating in a sensory array of aesthetic and auditory experiences. Prompted by the results of the 2016 presidential election – spanning four years from 1/20/2017 – 1/20/2021 – I gathered thousands of written and verbal responses to my question, “How do you feel about what’s happening around us and in the world?” Interactions between the artist and audience establish a call-and-response dialogue. I converted the replies into social media hashtags and the pertinent image posted on Instagram – @mcayer27. These reflect the emotional temperature of the times and aim to share words of hope for positive changes, peace, and collective understanding. “We all need it, don’t we?” The participant commentaries’ hashtags became the basis for performances throughout the US, India, Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica, and worldwide, including several monologues, sculptural works, and installations. In a recent full-length exhibition, I presented participatory performances, installation, social media, soundtrack, live performances, and video format across a series of settings, from my studio to the streets of New York City, Geneva and Bergen; Glasshouse ArtLifeLab and New York Studio School, Local Project and Plaxall Gallery in New York; the Bergen Art Festival in Norway and Blue Spirit in Costa Rica.
The project’s soundtrack, created in collaboration with pianist Nicole Brancato and Joris Pierre Katz, can be heard on Bandcamp and YouTube. You can view an excerpt of the video made in the conclusion of this project on YouTube and Vimeo; see the performance presented at Local Project on Vimeo. Please visit @mcayer27 to see the entire progression of this project featured on Instagram. Hangers 101 & a Litany of Hashtags #CautioneryTale – the ensuing performances – comprised monologues created from participants’ commentaries and the transformation of the yarned hangers. Performance artifacts become sculptural work and installation. The culmination of the work is exhibited through large-scale installation, sculpture, performance, soundtrack, and video.
