From the organizer:
Like utopias, there are as many “end of the worlds” as there are people to experience it. The works in "The Dream Continues" reflect the experience of living through a transition of worlds, with one foot in fantasy and the other in decay. Is it still the end when we continue on the other side?
Synthesizing fashion, poetry, drag and augmented reality, Bun Stout’s handmade augmented reality costumes transform wearers, often nightlife personalities, into otherworldly storytellers. Their autobiographical poetry, hidden inside physical artworks and garments through augmented reality portals, must be dug out by audiences via exploration or patience. These poems live secretly in their garment shells, like a soul, mostly unseen but loving each wearer through their various lives. Dreamed up as fashion objects from an imaginary future, in our reality, they are garments for spaces where self-creation is a practice of self-preservation.
Bun Stout is a mixed-reality artist planted in Chicago’s underground queer party culture. Stemming from their experiences forming trans community in the rural midwest, their practice works to understand the personal and communal mythologies generated in places where self-invention is a means of survival. Stout’s studio functions as an experimental costume library open to local performers. The borrowing results in iterated lives of the garments, which–in combination with the lived experiences of the wearers–make ongoing artworks that become enmeshed in local underground lore. Stout has shown widely across the Midwest and internationally. Recent honors include support from the 3Arts Ignite Fund, Chicago Artist Coalition ENVISION Grant, Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Grant, and the Virginia Aberle Memorial Scholarship to attend ACRE Residency. They have a BFA from Indiana University and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they currently teach digital media and augmented reality.
Please note: this event is not hosted by The Cleveland Bucket List, please click the learn more button for additional details and to contact the event host directly.