for the sake of dancing in the street

Images by Gina Clyne.

for the sake of dancing in the street is a group exhibition celebrating the interconnectedness of feminist and queer resistance. Collectively the work documents and amplifies individual acts of resistance as well as historical and ongoing global feminist protest movements, including the current uprisings in Iran–creating connections between these movements across space and time. Archival materials, videos, zines and posters trace these connections and create new reverberating calls to action. Central to the exhibition is a focus on dance as a liberatory practice, using disruption, joy and irreverence as critical tactics.

The exhibition features installations by LASTESIS, Morehshin Allahyari and Yasmine Nasser Diaz, in conversation with works by Ava Ansari, Geochicas, and archival materials compiled by Caitlin Abadir-Mullally and Raja Bella Hicks. An original print by Entangled Roots Press is featured in the gallery space and available as a takeaway. 

As part of for the sake of dancing in the street, LAND is thrilled to present For Your Eyes Only (FYEO)  by Yasmine Diaz. FYEO is the latest iteration of multidisciplinary artist Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom installation. The space contains signifiers familiar to SWANA* communities, but relatable to many adolescents of the diaspora. Against the graphic pink wallpaper, a two-channel video includes a projection of women and non-binary persons dancing in a reel of online selfie videos. A second video montage of news clips featuring women-led political rallies from around the Global South plays on a 90’s-era television set. FYEO presents a layered constellation of interrelated realities, spanning borders, identities, and time, aligning along intersectional and transnational movements of solidarity. The project intends to create a space to strengthen bonds between female and non-binary diasporic communities. By juxtaposing the diasporic dilemma alongside ongoing struggles for rights by women across the region and beyond, the FYEO installation generates complex yet hopeful connections rooted in possibilities for the future. 

The exhibition and associated programming were conceived and organized in collaboration with OXY ARTS, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), and Yasmine Nasser Diaz.

Opening Reception
Saturday, June 3
6-8pm

Celebrate the opening of for the sake of dancing in the street with a live DJ, food, drinks and dancing along with a special dance performances activating the exhibition. TCS (Tea Devereaux, Simrin Player, and Chryssa Hadjis) will perform an original dance piece commissioned in response to Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s installation, For Your Eyes Only. The performance will be set to the FYEO soundtrack composed by Carol Ohair, who will also be DJing throughout the night. 

Performance times: 6:30pm & 8pm

About Yasmine Nasser Diaz

Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice draws from nuanced, discordant, and evolving concepts of culture, class, gender, religion, and family. She uses mixed media collage, photo-based fiber etching, immersive installation, audio, and video to explore connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. Born in the United States to parents who immigrated from the highlands of Southern Yemen, her youth was shaped by traversing the discordant environments of a tightly collectivist Yemeni diaspora, ‘90s  inner-city Chicago, and Western society that prizes individualism and consumerism. 

Diaz uses her work to navigate these experiences while exploring themes of gender and bicultural identity; family honor, shame and reputation. She sees her practice as a place of relevance for others, particularly those of the growing multicultural diasporas of the Global South who have migrated to areas of the Global North. Diaz is especially interested in complex narratives of third-culture identity, their precarious invisibility/hyper-visibility, and the friction often experienced between the individual and the collective.

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for the sake of dancing in the street Programing Schedule
All programs to take place at OXY Arts.

• 6/22: Social Media For Social Justice Workshop (in partnership with the Feminist Center for Creative Work)
• 7/8: Raï Dance Workshop with Esraa Warda – RSVP HERE
• 7/8: Raï Dance Performance with Esraa Warda and Fella Oudane
• 7/20: JOYLAND (2022) Screening
• 7/27: Selected Shorts Screening (curated by Womxn in Windows)
• 7/29: Poetry Reading with TQR Mag

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LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.