Jessica MacCormack's interdisiplinary practice engages with the intersection of institutional violence and the socio-political reality of personal trauma. Her recent works integrate animation, video, painting and collage in social interventions and community productions that explore issues of criminalization, HIV/AIDS, racism, transphobia, sexual assault and mental health. Working with communities and individuals affected by stigma and oppression, MacCormack uses cultural platforms and distribution networks to facilitate collaborations which position art as a tool to engender personal and political agency. She has an MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies from the Bauhaus University (2008). Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Concordia University and lives in Montréal, Québec.

(I am currently using this tumblr as a sketchbook. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see older projects, or go here http://jessmaccormack.tumblr.com.)
Brush your teeth with me

Brush your teeth with me (2003)

In this interactive performance I went to people’s homes and brushed my teeth with them on the sidewalk, leaving the toothpaste to stain the concrete. Without the usual confines of the bathroom, we gaze at each other instead of a mirror. The taboo act of spitting conflicts with the sanctified act of personal hygiene. Our speech is temporarily impaired while our mouths are full; the awkwardness isn’t alleviated by small talk.

Weeks and months later I would come back to document the stains, until they disappeared. The “stain” is an area of sidewalk that is cleaned by the toothpaste, disappearing as the spot is dirtied again over time. The ongoing accumulation of photocopies and Polaroid photographs of spit stains, taken from the multiple sites of performances, were displayed in the gallery as part of an investigation into the possibility of systematizing the documents.

Spit stains







  3 years ago    4 notes    performance  intervention  polaroid  documentation  intimacy  

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    2003
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