TRANSFORMER20:
BOOK tOUR

WASHINGTON DC

PANEL & PARTY

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 | 06:30–09:00 PM
EATON DC - 1201 K STREET NW

Join Transformer at Eaton DC on September 14 to celebrate the launch of our first book, transformer20!

This special evening of artist conversations & community gathering is presented in collaboration with Eaton DC's A2BVinyl Listening and Storytelling Series.

A Side: 6:30 - 7:30 PM

Artist & educator Edgar Endress will lead a conversation with artists Andrew Demirjian, Pussy Noir, Naoco Wowsugi, and Holly Bass in Eaton's Crystal Ballroom about how working with Transformer has transformed their art practices and creative careers. 

B Side: 7:30 - 9:00 PM

The panel conversation will open up for community gathering & deep cut Transformer storytelling via a reception in the Eaton DC Library. Peruse & purchase the transformer20 book, and hear/share 'off the record' stories of Transformer, over cocktails and a special playlist from the Transformer archives created by our Founder & Director Victoria Reis.

Eaton DC's A2B vinyl listening and storytelling series harkens to times when folks sat down and dropped the needle on both sides. Hosts for this Thursday evening series in the Eaton DC Library chose songs/albums that soundscaped a special time in their lives, accompanied by deep cut stories.

This September 14 DC event will kick off Transformer’s FRAMEWORK Panel fall book tour series, with upcoming events in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City.

PANELISTS

HOLLY BASS

Holly Bass is a multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer and director. Her work has been presented at spaces such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, and the 2022 Venice Biennale. Her visual art work includes photography, installation, video and performance. A Cave Canem fellow, she has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was a 2019 Red Bull Detroit artist-in-residence and a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow. She is a 2020-2022 Live Feed resident artist at New York Live Arts and a 2021-22 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. A gifted and dedicated teaching artist, she directed a year-round creative writing and performance program for the DC juvenile detention center for four years and continues to facilitate workshops nationally and internationally.

Images: Holly Bass, transformer20 book, 2023. Essay excerpt.

Transformer Projects:

Contributor, transformer20, 2023
Artist, Double Rainbow: PRISMMMs, 2023 
Performing Artist, Siren Arts: Salt, 2002
Artist, Da Y Toma/Give and Take, 2009
Artist, Sass, 2007

Andrew Demirjian

Andrew Demirjian builds linguistic, sonic and visual environments that disrupt habituated ways of reading, hearing and seeing. His interdisciplinary artistic practice examines structures that shape consciousness and perception, questioning frameworks that support the status quo and limit thought. The works are often presented in non-traditional spaces and take the form of mixed-media installations, generative artworks, video poems, augmented reality apps and live performances.

Andrew’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of the Moving Image, The New Museum – First Look: New Art Online, The Arab American National Museum, The Newark Museum, Fridman Gallery, Transformer, Eyebeam, The Ford Foundation Gallery, White Box, the Center for Book Arts, and many other galleries, festivals and museums.

Andrew teaches theory and production courses in emerging media in the Film and Media Department and the Integrated Media Arts MFA program at Hunter College. He is currently in Washington, DC as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow.

Images: Andrew Demirjian, transformer20 book, 2023. Performance excerpt.

Transformer Projects:

Artist, Which Yesterday is Tomorrow?, Andrew Demirjian and Dahlia Elsayed, 2020
Performing Artist, Our Portal is Open, Siren Arts: Into the Mystic, 2019

PUSSY NOIR

Pussy Noir was born and raised in the Washington, DC area and grew up in theaters and rehearsal halls. At the tender age of 5 they claimed the starring role in their first play. The acting bug caught them quickly. Their exposure to the big stage came via performing in President Clinton’s second inaugural festival, in the premiere of the opera King, and later with the Victorian Lyric Opera Company. Pussy Noir began mastering their craft as a teenager at Washington, DC's prestigious Duke Ellington School of the Arts as a vocal music major, The Washington Opera summer program for young singers, as well The National Gallery of Art Student Fellowship program. Following their graduation from Duke Ellington, Pussy Noir dove headfirst into the New York fashion industry, styling photoshoots and working backstage at fashion shows. They also spent time in Paris and became enchanted by European fashion and art scenes which continue to influence them to this day.

The Pussy Noir character developed into an androgynous performer, host, and producer within nightclubs and art galleries in 2011. She has made an appearance on The Real Housewives of Potomac and hosted events at the Hirshhorn Museum, The Art Museum of the Americas, the legendary 9:30 Club and the historic Howard Theater. Currently, she is an artist fellow in the Culture Caucus at the Kennedy Center, and is the co-producer, headliner, and MC of the Wig Party Drag Festival.

Images: Pussy Noir, transformer20 book, 2023. Performance excerpts.

Transformer Projects:

Performing Artist, Siren Arts: Drift, 2023
Performing Artist, Shadow/Casters, 2018
Artist, Defy/Define, 2016
Performing Artist, Pussy Pop Catwalk : Purrrformance Art Party, 2014

NAOCO WOWSUGI

Naoco Wowsugi is a community-engaged artist who blurs the lines between being an artist and an engaged citizen. As a first-generation immigrant living and working in Washington, DC, Wowsugi's cross-disciplinary projects—including portrait photography, participatory performance, sound healing, and horticulture—explore the nature of belonging and inclusive community building. In recent years, Wowsugi has closely collaborated with hyperlocal communities. Inspired by the ideas of bioregionalism, which examines how nature affects the livelihood and the relationships among local cultures and people, Wowsugi's projects highlight and fortify everyday communal and interpersonal identities.

Wowsugi's notable exhibitions and talks have taken place at Washington Project for the Arts, Transformer, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Redux Contemporary Art Center, and the Queens Museum. She has received awards and fellowships from The Surf Point Foundation Residency (2022), Oak Spring Garden Foundation Residency (2022), Wherewithal Project Grants from the Washington Project for the Arts and The Andy Warhol Foundation (2022), and The Rauschenberg Residency (2017).

Wowsugi currently works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at American University.

Images: Naoco Wowsugi, transformer20 book, 2023. Performance & Artist Conversation excerpts.

Transformer Projects:

Contributor, transformer20, 2023
Artist, Very Sad Lab: The Incubator, 2022
Mentor, E19: Artistic Interventions, 2022
Artist, Mapping the Future World, 2020
Mentor, E16: The Revolution Will Be Televised, 2019
Performing Artist, Siren Arts: Turning the Tide, 2018

MODERATOR: EDGAR ENDRESS

Edgar Endress is a Chilean artist who works within the limits of social-practice and sculpture, interactive media, collaboration and public engagement. Most of Endress' work involves working with communities with an emphasis on popular culture. His works of video art and documentaries reveal a very personal style of camera and editing, with a constant interest in the relationship between the natural landscape and the built one, as well as in the human presence and the personal stories that are held in these spaces.

He is the founder of the Floating Collective Laboratory, a mobile museum that aims to bring art closer to the daily life of the public and stimulate participation in contemporary and social art.

Endress serves as the Director of the MFA Art and Visual Technology Department at George Mason University and Associate Professor of New Media Arts, Art and Visual Technology Department at George Mason University.