Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station
installation image, APE Gallery, Northampton MA (2025)
an instance of the larger project Inside the Breath (In Network Time)
This installation presents excerpts of the texts, videos, songs, sounds, and artworks from Inside the Breath in the form of a regional information-reflection station, one of a distributed system of stations across the planet in INT. This environment is designed to encourage reflection on the histories, ideas, and feelings of INT society so that we can continue to inhabit these ideals.
Artworks, Texts, sound/music, and video by Sara Smith
Spanish translations by María José Gimenez
Singing by Barbie Diewald, Jules Skloot, Karinne Keithley Syers, Meredith Bove, Rebecca Pappas, Sara Smith, Tyler Rai
Dancing (in video) by Barbie Diewald, Karinne Keithley Syers, Meredith Bove, Sara Smith
Subjects:
Anzaldúa, Gloria -- Philosophy
Borderlands -- Environmental aspects
Borderlands -- Political aspects
Cooperative societies
Distributed cognition
Quorum sensing (Microbiology)
Host-bacteria relationships
Geobiology
Octopuses
Solidarity
Inside the Breath (In Network Time)
(2017-present/current)
Inside the Breath is an ecotopian exploration of the biological properties of interconnection, and a long project set in I.N.T., the calendar era of our interspecies planetary future. The world of INT is rooted in the writings and archives of the queer Chicana writer and activist Gloria Anzaldúa as modeled by octopuses, made possible by bacterial communication networks. The increased multisensory and communicative faculties humans have in INT enable greater organizing with and accountability to all planetary creatures and systems. We are the climate.
Created with many collaborators, including Meredith Bove, Kathy Couch, Barbie Diewald, María José Giménez, Karinne Keithley Syers, and the singers of the Network Time Small Human Chorus. Project research was made possible by the archivists who maintain and ensure access to Gloria Anzldúa’s archives at The Benson Latin American Collections at the University of Texas Libraries and at UC Santa Cruz Special Collections & Archives.
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WE DO THE MOLECULAR DANCE OF SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM
HACEMOS LA DANZA MOLECULAR DEL ACTIVISMO ESPIRITUAL
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Read: Excerpts from Our Texts
Listen & watch: Future Oral Histories: bedtime story (excerpt, Shift Again)
Listen & watch: This detour is part of the path; Transmission/Danza Molecular (excerpt, Shift Again)
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BRING US A LOWER LOVE
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
Subjects:
Anzaldúa, Gloria -- Philosophy
Borderlands -- Environmental aspects
Borderlands -- Political aspects
Cooperative societies
Distributed cognition
Geobiology
Host-bacteria relationships
Host-bacteria relationships
Octopuses
Solidarity
performance-screening image, "Shift Again" (2022)
an instance of the larger project Inside the Breath (In Network Time)
video stills, "The Detour is the Path" (2022)
an instance of the larger project Inside the Breath (In Network Time)
Future Oral Histories, audio installation, Interstellar Nepantla exhibition, Movement Gallery, San Antonio, TX (2019)
an instance of the larger project Inside the Breath (In Network Time)
Micro-Attentional Techniques for Humans (aka “MATH class")
Movement study/practice sessions focused on subtle techniques of attention and transformation that affect our dancing bodies and our entangled relationships. Topics include sensory perception, respiration, proprioception, ecological-social attunement, and other quiet-but-influential processes that can support, deepen, and sustain our bigger dancing times (with a broad definition of "dancing"). Sessions include introductions to current scientific understanding of physiological systems and structures, as well as improvisation prompts for physical exploration, directed movement exercises, and group discussion.
Soundscores for Living Scenery/Soundscores for Remembered Landscapes (ongoing)
Soundscores created to accompany specific landscapes. Some are to be listened to on-site, while others have been made in honor of and to recall a particular place at a particular time. soundcloud.com/saralsmith/sets/soundscores-for-living-scenery
The most recent series was supported in part by APE Gallery in Northampton MA. Please check their site for information about the 2024 zine release and listening tour. apearts.org/soundscores-for-living-scenery
Subjects:
Environmental music
Sound design
Sound recordings
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth
(2012-17)
Created with and performed by Candice Salyers.
An exploration of the physics and geologic properties of interconnection and indeterminacy. Also a "nearly true" story about a forgotten nineteenth-century geologist who dedicated her life to deciphering and channeling her prophetic visions into a theory of planetary interdependency. Also a tale of how a valuing of solidity and static measurability can soften into a greater understanding and acceptance of change as the only true constant.
Florence's fictional Soft Earth Theory predicted future scientific understanding (quantum physics, chaos theory, environmental science) and forefronted social and ecological responsibility. It was constructed from pieces of spiritual and scientific ideas across cultures and time periods, and stretched from the 4th century forward to meet current understanding of the role of uncertainty in how the universe functions, and the effects of humans on the earth and other species.
This project was made possible in part through a creative research fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society, and by the archivists and librarians who maintain and provide access to those collections.
Subjects:
Imaginary biography
Quantum cosmology
Social ecology
Chaotic behavior in systems
Causality (Physics)
Geology, Stratigraphic--Anthropocene
Mercy
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth [about this project]
(2012-17)
Created with and performed by Candice Salyers (pictured).
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth [about this project]
artists' book with stereo-viewer reels
An artists' book and stereo-viewer exploration of the physics and geologic properties of interconnection and indeterminacy, based on a "nearly true" story about a forgotten nineteenth-century geologist who dedicated her life to deciphering and channeling her prophetic visions into a theory of planetary interdependency. Also a tale of how a valuing of solidity and static measurability can soften into a greater understanding and acceptance of change as the only true constant.
You Got Eyes
(2016)
Made in collaboration with film & video artist Adam R. Levine
An experiment in movement and single-frame video inspired by photographer Robert Frank’s book The Americans.
Performance by Aretha Aoki and Sara Smith
Subjects:
Frank, Robert, 1924- Américains
Documentary photography
Photography -- Political aspects
United States Population
United States -- Social life and customs -- Pictorial works
You Got Eyes
pictured: Aretha Aoki, Sara Smith
Made in collaboration with film & video artist Adam R. Levine
Reception - Perception - Action (workshop)
An introduction to a research practice rooted in visual perception. We focus on the eye-brain connection as a starting place for greater physical understanding, and the perceptual relationship between imagination and embodiment. We work through a physical warm up and a series of exercises designed to make connections between visual and whole-body receptiveness, and examine how this informs our actions. We ask how we can use this awareness to help us re-approach seeing and moving, and how we can train ourselves to make new choices. Lastly, we focus on the implications of this practice outside the studio, especially the potential of pattern recognition and disruption to lead the way to more effective, ethical, and relational living.
Subjects:
Visual perception
Motion perception (Vision)
Binocular vision
Color Vision
Visual perception -- social aspects
Visual perception -- political aspects
A Study of the Path of a Small Solar System Body; Or, The Politics of Rejection
(2007-2008)
A read-along performance about the reclassification of Pluto from planet to "dwarf planet" and the political nature of classification systems. Everyone turned the page when the bell rang.
Karinne Keithley Syers was Pluto. Emily Hricko, Goldie Peacock, and Jessamyn Schmidt were Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
Subjects:
Cataloging
Classification
Developed countries
Developing countries
Discrimination
Group of Eight (Organization)
International Astronomical Union
Planets
Pluto
Taxonomists
What she saw and how it felt
(2011-2012)
Developed with and performed by Sarah Baumert
A performance of episodes based on Sarah Baumert’s experiences during a five month-stay in Paris and my imaginings of those experiences. The making process began when I sent Sarah a series of readings, exercises, and assignments aimed at building familiarity with unfamiliar surroundings.
Subjects:
Americans--France--Paris
Anxiety
Architecture, French
Culture and tourism
French language
Maps
Visual perception
When last we saw our heroines...
(2005-2006)
Created with and performed by Karinne Keithley Syers and Katy Pyle and also performed by Taryn Griggs
A short project about the long arc of history and time travel. Two labor activists are caught up in a time warp. It's 1905, the year in which the IWW is founded, and in which Einstein presents his Theory of Special Relativity, a key component in some models of time travel. This experience compels them to wonder about the nature of time and space, and also to contemplate their own place in history—the impact of their activities, the likelihood that the future will remember them.
Subjects (Library of Congress):
Collective memory
Women social reformers -- History
Special relativity (Physics)
Time travel
Wormholes (Physics)
Works on Paper: a report on imaginary architecture
(2004-2005)
Created with and performed by Taryn Griggs and Karinne Keithley Syers
A dance that began with the Situationist International and the work of architect and artist Constant (Nieuwenhuys). We asked questions about the relationship between political theory, historical research, and art making, and presented a "report" of the artistic results of structural experiments. A dance about (and also not about) architecture.
“Let us be consciously imaginary architects, since we know very well that only social transformation and radical political transformation can create the basis for actual work.”
—Bruno Taut
Subjects:
Book houses
Constant, 1920-2005
Internationale situationniste
Polaroid Land camera
Utopias
Visionary architecture
The Candidate is Absent
(July, 2016)
A collaborative project of the Pinecone Finance Reform Party staff:
Bernadine Mellis, Data Visualization Technician
EE Miller, Action Research and Outreach Director
Gina Siepel, Chief Operational Engineer
Sara Smith, Archivist of Revolution Messaging
Frustrated with the state of U.S. electoral politics, we created a pop-up campaign headquarters in the A.P.E. Gallery (Northampton, MA).
From the project website:
"The Pinecone Finance Reform Party is a forest-floor organization inspired by historical desires and disappointments to conduct local action research with a global vision. We are manifesting a candidate who speaks with us, as we imagine a campaign and a world we can build together."
Subjects:
Political campaigns--United States
Elections
Democracy
Dreams
KINEBAGO
A print forum about dance and movement research in New England
(2010-2017)
1: Nell Breyer, Sara Coffey, Krista DeNio, Katherine Ferrier, David Hurwith, Ana Isabel Keilson & Daniel McCusker, Tiffany Rhynard.
2: Romain Bigé, Selene Colburn, Krista DeNio, Arthur Fink, Heidi Henderson, Annie Kloppenberg & Lauren Simpson, Dahlia Nayar, Peter Schumann/Lubberland National Dance Co.
3: Ellen Smith Ahern, Chris Aiken, Lorraine Chapman The Company, Hannah Dennison, Cassie Peterson.
4: Kathy Couch, Cookie Harrist, Kinodance, Adele Myers, Cassie Peterson.
5: Deborah Goffe, Eliza Larson, Candice Salyers, Sandra Wieser/The Living Library.
6: Billbob Brown, Katja Kolcio, Polly Motley, David R. White.
7: Charlotte Brathwaite, Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Kelly Silliman, Wendy Woodson.
Tell me a story from someone else's life
(2006-2014)
A collaborative project with known and unknown collaborators. The collection of 35mm slides I found at yard sales and thrift stores over many years was the material for slide-show performances of imagined personal and historical narratives with accompanying sound scores. Many of these orphaned images were sets, carefully labeled and organized by their original owner-creators. I tried to honor that care with the project. Some stories I wrote, and some were contributed.
Subjects:
Audio-visual archives
Found objects (Art)
Imaginary biography
Projection art
Slides (Photography)
Stories & storytellers