SEBASTIAN HERNÁNDEZ
Sebastian Hernández (@brownskinhazel) is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary and performance artist. Having received their BA in both Art Practice and Dance and Performance Studies from UC Berkeley in 2016, their work has been exhibited and performed at the following venues: LACMA; MOCA LA; ONE Gallery, West Hollywood; LACE; Commonwealth and Council; Club sCUM; REDCAT Theater and Angels Gate Cultural Center, among others.
About Pistil:
"Commissioned artist Sebastian Hernández (HYPANTHIUM, REDCAT) debuts a new experimental work refracting the mythology around 1959’s Cooper’s Donuts riot. A group of queer performers embody complex and ever-evolving legacies in the fight for justice, parsing decades of sociocultural shift to ask: where are we now?"
- Navel LA
.
Interview with Sebastian Hernández conducted by Lucile Henderson on 3/8/21:
Lucile: You had shared that your art is intrinsically vulnerable. What about Pistil demonstrates this relationship you have with your work?
Sebástian: Pistil at its origins works through a historical event of discrimination in Los Angeles between the police and queer and trans folks, (https://thepridela.com/2016/09/los-angeles-cooper-donuts-gay-riots-sparked-revolution-10-years-stonewall/) that by design asked me and anyone that participated in Pistil, to inevitably be vulnerable. The work prompted me to be cognizant of the violently journey of LGBTQI+ rights in the United States and more specifically in my home city of Los Angeles. I confronted the sad history of being born queer in a heteronormative and white supremacist world which forces queer subjects to build a kind of resilience that is simultaneously unique and unfair.
I asked the performers+/muses to come into a process of radical listening and radical care; asking people to be open and susceptible with new ways of seeing and being in space, time and in collectivity. Letting me direct them into a kind of vulnerable space with our naked bodies at times and with touch was all part of the calling upon our sensitivities to make this work that dealt with all of our individual stories and experiences with being queer in a world that continues to discriminate against us.
.
Lucile: Why do you believe it is important for this work to be viewed through stills rather than through video documentation of the performance?
Sebástian: I don’t think it’s so much of a belief of mine that this work should be viewed only through photographs so much as it is more about me not being ready to release video performance documentation of the work online. I think it’s important for me to say that this performance was only performed once and was intended to be performed once from the beginning. Offering photo documentation of the work feels like I’m honoring the audience that attended the performance. I can hardly get myself to be at ease as I replay the live documentation for Pistil and that feels like something I should honor and listen to as well. There’s the vulnerability aspect that comes into play as I watch the performance unravel all over again. It makes me really miss being around my friends and the shared sense of being queer without questioning it. It’s a sense of being thats so relaxing and that feels like home; when I look back at the footage I get kind of nervous, excited and emotional all at the same time. I haven’t seen or been around queer community in over a year now and that makes me really so sad that it made me literally stop watching the performance recently.
I think photo documentation feels like a nice compromise for me. As an artist who believes in the liveness of performance and in the commitment behind supporting and witnessing performance, a photograph leaves this kind of time stamp that makes the viewer fantasize and make out their own kind of narrative that hopefully compels them to find out more about these captured bodies. I guess in short, this is how I manage a kind of healthy relationship with institutional power over the witnessing of my work. At the end of the day a photograph still has so much to offer someone.
.
I think photo documentation feels like a nice compromise for me. As an artist who believes in the liveness of performance and in the commitment behind supporting and witnessing performance, a photograph leaves this kind of time stamp that makes the viewer fantasize and make out their own kind of narrative that hopefully compels them to find out more about these captured bodies. I guess in short, this is how I manage a kind of healthy relationship with institutional power over the witnessing of my work. At the end of the day a photograph still has so much to offer someone.
.
Lucile: Our exhibition's theme is centered around usage of the body. How would you describe your use of body in this work?
Sebástian: Pistil (female reproductive part of a flower) is a part of a series of performance works that I started in 2019 with a work titled Hypanthium (cup of the flower that produces nectar) which dedicates a line of works within my larger body of work to the anatomical parts of a flower. I created another work titled Anther (The male part of the stamen where pollen is produced) after Pistil that followed in line with these succession of performances that I created thinking of my body as a plant in efforts to deepen my sensibility for plants and to build a possible plant intuition. With this said I committed to working with other bodies and their experiences in a way that was fun and spontaneous in juxtaposition to a very specific kind of theater ran work like Hypanthium which didn’t allow for as much room for risk and spontaneity. With this performance I wanted to collectively explore ideas of queer kinship, gender identity, sensuality, touch, witnessing and liberation. What are your gender pronouns? What do you want to get out of this performance together and individually? How can we keep our sense of self and agency as muses in a world that just wants to use our bodies for their exterior image? How can I as the director of this work make these powerful individuals in their own right feel like they have agency in every moment that might occur the day of the performance? How are we taking care of each other physically and emotionally? It’s all these questions that deal with interpersonal dynamism and interconnected care for each other. One of several parts of this performance was the subjection to harm of their bodies as they became a queer human base for a big sheet of glass that would become the platform for which I would stand up on and deliver a cunning and unapologetic speech about queer men of color taking up space and not offering enough trans women/ trans femmes/ nonbinary people of color the support and platform they need among other sassy commentary on Los Angeles queer nightlife, my own feelings of erasure and visibility as a trans gender nonconforming femme in the art world.
.
Lucile: What do you think is special about performing group pieces? Do you like to collaborate with your dancers?
Sebástian: After Hypanthium I wanted to push myself and go from working in a trio ensemble to a quartet. I wanted to work with people that just loved to dance and express themselves through dance wether they had a formal modern dance practice or not. With Hypanthium I needed a kind of rigorous modern dance technique training from my dancers that allowed me to explore and work through some ideas about “modern dance” and capitalism as it impacted my queer brown body under Trumps America. Miguel, Dicko, and Niko are all people whom I know from queer nightlife in L.A. and whom all just love to dance for hours on end. They were people that I met on the dance floor. They were all people who had killer dance moves that inspired me to continue dancing. They all have their own unique sense of self and style in dance and in fashion. They all have a femme sensibility that I felt connected us all even before the opportunity of working with them had presented itself to me. I told the muses at our first couple meetings that working with them felt like destiny. Working with people is not an easy task as you hold a lot of responsibility being the director of each performance. You take on a lot to be able to navigate and move the team forward with care as you try to get them to be vulnerable with you. Its not always smiles and laughs. It's all very hard work but even with it’s hardships, I still very much enjoy working with groups and seeing the fruits of our labor impact culture and the underground not only locally but globally. It’s only been 2 years since Pistil was presented and I can’t imagine how this work will be received and perceived 5 to 10 years from now.
.
https://navel.la/events/no-cruising-sebastian-hernandez/
