dieFirma East on Shelter Island presents “Swept Away”, a series of performances by artist Allison Halter taking place outdoors October 30 through November 1 with timed ticket entry.
“With sound and movement, Allison Halter will transform dieFirma East, bewitching the audience under the light of the full moon with new rituals using a collection of her handmade broom sculptures,” the gallery says in its invitation to the series.
Why brooms?
“Transforming found branches, Halter crafts brooms ranging from the familiar to the truly weird, with multiple heads and looping bristles,” dieFirma says. “Common household objects, when at rest, propped in some kitchen corner perhaps, brooms imply performance; they’re possessed with a readiness to clean and clear.”
“Brooms also perform in a world less mundane: They have a long history in spiritual thought — from familiar images of witchiness to various space-clearing and healing techniques.”
Allison Halter is a Brooklyn-based conceptual artist interested in systems of power and the acquisition and abdication of control in projects spanning performance, video, sound, sculpture, and photography.
“There’s magic all around, even in something as mundane as sweeping the floor to change the energetics of your space,” Halter says. “That’s radical because it’s accessible to anyone who wants to pick up a broom.”
A centuries’ old craft
At once recognizable and peculiar, Halter’s brooms rely on centuries’ old craft traditions that have often been replaced by the disposable mass-produced plastic tools, dieFirma says.
“These hand-sewn brooms endure and transform with use, over time acquiring a relationship between tool and user,” dieFirma says. “
“Whether fully functional or seemingly defying traditional earthly purposes in mutant form, Halter’s brooms embody these timeless devices’ many uses,” dieFirma says. “With a sound and movement, Halter will cast a unifying spell in each performance.”
“I’m always looking to create connections between myself and others, to weave a web between disparate people and experiences,” she explains. “Those are the instances when I feel the most magical and successful as an artist.”
‘Swept Away’ timed tickets
Swept Away is an opportunity to clear cobwebs literal or spiritual, to heal, to let us fly, briefly, elsewhere.
Swept Away will take place at dieFirma East, on Shelter Island, N.Y. and will be simultaneously broadcast to the window of dieFirma’s Cooper Square gallery.
Free timed reservations are essential to maintain social distancing. Order your tickets using this link to Eventbrite. Options for each of the three performance days are 2 PM to 3 PM, 5 PM to 6 PM, or 8 PM to 9 PM.
About Allison Halter
Halter’s projects have been exhibited and performed nationally at Echo Park Film Center (CA), Basilica Hudson (NY), Walker Art Center (MN), Knockdown Center (NY), Flux Factory (NY), Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (IL), Artists’ Television Access (CA), Experimental Film Festival Portland (OR), Ditch Projects (OR), and internationally at Galerie im Körnerpark (DE), dOCUMENTA(13) (DE), Titanik Galleria, (FI), MUU Performance Voyage (FI), and d’CLINIC Studios (SI).
She received her Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon.
