Coordinated with a multitude of participating community organizations in citywide collective experiences between July and November 2024 (details below), Exorcism = Liberation takes place in three U.S. locations with strong Puerto Rican diaspora communities. It is stewarded locally by A.P.E. Ltd. in partnership with UMass Fine Arts Center in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts; Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, IL; and a canary torsi in New York City.
Exorcism = Liberation utilizes familiar forms of political media campaigns to immerse the public in sonic experiences. The project places slogans and QR codes on the street and mass transit, distributing stickers, posters, handmade banners, lawn signs and buttons/pins through local community organizations acting as distribution hubs (a list of hubs can be found below). The slogans reflect the project’s themes: What is your first memory of dirt?, I came here to weep, Exorcism = Liberation.
Accompanying each slogan is a QR code leading to an immersive audio experience in which local Puerto Rican performers invite the individual listener to remember their connection to land, to grieve, and to conjure a liberated world. Exorcism = Liberation is an act of intervention, a rehearsal for collective action during a critical American election.
CREDITS
CONCEPT, SCRIPT & DIRECTIONYanira Castro
AUDIO DESIGNErica Ricketts
GRAPHIC DESIGNAlejandro Torres Viera
Luis A. Vázquez O’Neill
AUDIO PERFORMANCEMelissa DuPrey
josé alejandro rivera
Steph Reyes
BOMBAMichael Rodríguez
CREATIVE PRODUCERAriel Lembeck
PROJECT MANAGEMENTTyler Rai
AUDIO DESCRIPTIONAndrew Chapman
FUNDING
Exorcism = Liberation is an extension of Yanira Castro / a canary torsi’s I came here to weep, a multimodal participatory project enacted by the public and supported by Creative Capital.
Exorcism = Liberation is stewarded locally in Western MA by A.P.E. Ltd. in partnership with the UMass Fine Arts Center and by Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. In NYC, the project is spearheaded by Castro’s collaborative team, a canary torsi, and made possible by the generous support of Creative Capital Foundation, a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center Residency.
PARTICIPATING PARTNERS/HUBS
Hubs are partnering organizations that are supporting the project by hosting an event, a sign and/or serving as a place in which you can find the project’s visual materials – stickers, pins, etc that are available and free to the public.
To learn more about the project or join by becoming a participating hub please email hello@acanarytorsi.org.
* Places to find project materials
21C Museum Hotel Chicago
Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) *
The Guerrilla Art Collective, ARTivism Program at Curie Metro HS in Chicago
Honeycomb Network *
La Huerta Roots & Rays Garden
Lumpen Magazine
The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture *
Public Media Institute at Co-Prosperity
UrbanTheater Company *
Nonotuck, Nipmuc, Pocumtuc Lands / Massachusetts
Amherst College Library *
Amherst College La Causa
Amy H. Carberry Fine Arts Gallery at Springfield Technical Community College *
A.P.E (Available Potential Enterprises) Ltd. *
Holyoke Public Library *
Holyoke Media
Lighthouse
Nuestras Raíces *
UMass Fine Arts Center *
W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst *
Lenapehoking / New York City
Abrons Arts Center *
Center for Performance Research *
CENTRO (Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College) *
The Chocolate Factory Theater *
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center *
The Invisible Dog Art Center *
ISSUE Project Room
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
BIOS
Artist
Yanira Castro (she/ella) is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY) working at the intersection of communal practices, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects that center collective action in works activated and performed by the public. Since 2009, she’s created and performed with a team of collaborators as a canary torsi and has developed over fifteen projects that have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support.
Performace
Stephanie (Steph) Reyes (she/her) is an actress, theatre maker, and dancer born in Manati, Puerto Rico. Her most recent work includes a solo piece called “Colonized Imagination,” which talks about the colonizing repercussions on the Puerto Rican people. She is currently a part of Serious Play Theater Company with whom she will premiere the play, “Moving Water” this summer (2024) in Northampton, MA. stephreies.wordpress.com
Melissa DuPrey (she/her) is a queer multidisciplinary artist, actor, comic, producer, educator, playwright, community organizer and spiritualist with roots from Humboldt Park, Chicago. She has multiple TV/Film credits and is a critically-acclaimed solo artist (teatrista) whose work spans over a decade with 5 full-length solo plays highlighting the intersections of Blackness, queerness, healing, and sexuality. melissaduprey.com
josé alejandro rivera (he/they/elle) is a multiply neurodivergent artist, composer, designer, land worker, and community organizer that often works with sound and space across multimedia installations, maps, performances, transmission art, sound design for films and podcasts, and experimental audio works. Their current investigations utilize radio space as a means to playfully explore associations between neurodivergence, queerness, the political and cultural history of Borikén, diasporic identity, ufology, language, and decolonization. proxemiasound.net.
Michael Rodriguez, Jr. (he/him) has over 25 years of experience as a Latin Percussionist who hails from the Logan Square and Hermosa areas of Chicago. As both performer and teacher, Michael is intentional about spreading the love of music, culture and learning.
Design Team
Erica Ricketts (she/they) is an audio artist working in film, tv, podcasting and performance in roles such as foley artist, sfx editor, dialogue editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer. Some of their recent credits include Daughter of the Bride, Rounding, My Summer Vacation, Puppet Man, Season Two of Bottom Lines Top Dollars, and most recently with Yanira Castro's Last Audience: a performance podcast and I came here to weep. Erica is audio designer for Castro’s latest project Exorcism = Liberation.
Alejandro Torres Viera (he/him) is a graphic designer whose practice focuses on examining the tension between art, culture, and politics. He is a co-founder and design director of Fix Studio, an independent studio founded in 2021.
Luis A. Vázquez O’Neill (he/him) is a Puerto Rican designer and creative director working between NYC and PR with museums, galleries and non-profit organizations on visual identities, editorial design and type design based work.
Ariel Lembeck (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and creative producer working inside of installation, performance, and video. She lives and works in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn,NY) and has collaborated with Yanira Castro since 2021. She is the Creative Producer for Castro's latest project Exorcism = Liberation.
Tyler Rai (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and independent producer who works across live performance, narrative essays, and experimental sound works. She is Project Manager for Castro's latest public art project Exorcism = Liberation.
A project of a canary torsi
© 2024
Press Contact Janet Stapleton
212-633-0016 / stapleton.janet@gmail.com