Walk with Me is an on-going performance where she takes someone on a walk, with no set path while holding hands, introducing topics of social and personal discomforts and comforts. In Los Angeles a performance “walk” along the LA River brought up issues of social equality, health, and urbanism that are deeply embedded in the public discourse on the future of the river. Walk with Me has been performed along the East Coast.
Tighe’s work has also been shown in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and England. She co-founded the Feminist Video Quarterly screened in Minneapolis and is currently an event producer for Public Access TV.
Updated Spring 2017
INTERVIEW
Paige Tighe
Embodiment
I explored video and public movement to communicate with audiences both in traditional art venues, in the street and on buses. By dancing on buses across Santa Monica, I questioned social codes. Can art movements break open oppressive social codes? Am I the only one that feels so much fear in public? Can we all feel more joy? I can get on a bus and dance and I don’t have to ask someone if that is art. I see the public component of my art as a way of questioning the boundaries that are set up for art. My body and sustainability are connected. The bus is a statement of the city. Riding the bus is a statement about how a city runs.
I did not expect that I would be riding buses and dancing when I applied to this program. I expected to learn how to work with people, and to make artwork in a community, but I did not expect the freedom to delve into the theory and make it my own, which has been very satisfying. I didn’t expect to join the experimental dance community, which has been a blessing. There is no way that I could have known what a perfectly magical transformative fit it would be for me personally.
I am organizing a Community Dance Series at LACE with classmate Jules Rochielle Sievert. I am also the first curatorial fellow at Otis’ Ben Maltz Gallery, where I am learning about organizing shows in the hope of communicating new ideas.