artist|statement
My artistic practice is, first and foremost, a lifelong quest for community. Plugging into my surroundings, to others, across disciplines, across gender, across species. In creating my narrative and text based works, I seek to repurpose mundane items, or use items sustainably harvested from nature to foster a more immediate connection to the earth and tap into that universal spark that binds us all.
Harlem, 4/3/2017
Harlem, 4/3/2017
I've always had a penchant for mythology, folktales, stories filtering down through the collective unconscious...
There is an impression I receive from these stories (these fantastic explanations of the natural world, how things work and why, how they relate to a condition, tragically, comically; life, death!) that compels me to work, to struggle to capture and share the essence of a dream, a journey, or a connection; tales (and ways of telling) that are getting lost in the noise.
I yearn for wildness. I harbor an inkling that the myth of human supremacy is just that; myth. I have a deep desire to obliterate the
scala naturae, the Great Chain of Being. I believe in art that exists in a space of gender fluidity, species equality. Art that creates an inexplicable
understanding, dropping the barrier between creator and observer.
The connection is visceral. Raw and messy and urgent. I brew my own inks and paints, create etchings with bleeding ink and acid and thread, dirt and found objects, print monotypes with discarded plexiglass and cardboard, create masks and puppets and installations using almost entirely garbage.
My interdisciplinary performance work centers on the concept of movement before thought. Marrying subconscious narrative with mythic and folk impulses, science, history, social justice...feminism, environmentalism. To that end, I create ritual-inspired participatory performances centered on intuitive movement and pure emotion and rooted in the world of the misfit. In choosing to create moments that are site specific, re-purposing mundane scavenged objects, using urgent movement, mask, costume, I seek to create a dialogue about our place, about what immobilizes us, tangles us up, throws us forward, breaks us down.
I like the surprises and the accidents, the failures and successes, the story, the connection.
There is an impression I receive from these stories (these fantastic explanations of the natural world, how things work and why, how they relate to a condition, tragically, comically; life, death!) that compels me to work, to struggle to capture and share the essence of a dream, a journey, or a connection; tales (and ways of telling) that are getting lost in the noise.
I yearn for wildness. I harbor an inkling that the myth of human supremacy is just that; myth. I have a deep desire to obliterate the
scala naturae, the Great Chain of Being. I believe in art that exists in a space of gender fluidity, species equality. Art that creates an inexplicable
understanding, dropping the barrier between creator and observer.
The connection is visceral. Raw and messy and urgent. I brew my own inks and paints, create etchings with bleeding ink and acid and thread, dirt and found objects, print monotypes with discarded plexiglass and cardboard, create masks and puppets and installations using almost entirely garbage.
My interdisciplinary performance work centers on the concept of movement before thought. Marrying subconscious narrative with mythic and folk impulses, science, history, social justice...feminism, environmentalism. To that end, I create ritual-inspired participatory performances centered on intuitive movement and pure emotion and rooted in the world of the misfit. In choosing to create moments that are site specific, re-purposing mundane scavenged objects, using urgent movement, mask, costume, I seek to create a dialogue about our place, about what immobilizes us, tangles us up, throws us forward, breaks us down.
I like the surprises and the accidents, the failures and successes, the story, the connection.
bio|graphy
Interdisciplinary artist and scavenger Autumn Kioti combines improvisational movement, aerial and circus arts, choreography, narrative, sound and visual arts, activism and social justice. Finding value in society's discards, she builds masks, puppets, installations and environments from recovered items, marrying subconscious narrative with mythic and folk impulses, science, agriculture and history, to create ritual-inspired participatory performances centered on intuitive movement and pure emotion. She roots her practice in the world of the misfit, seeking to shed light on the disenfranchised.
Her current practice includes a series of ongoing performative, installation-based, site specific and community engagement/action explorations. On paper, she is currently creating works by gathering plant matter and other found objects, then burning or boiling or otherwise manipulating to create dyes, inks, paints and drawing materials. Text art becomes the basis for further performance exploration and inspiration for the creation of her upcoming workshops and projects. She is also an urban forager/scavenger, feeding herself and her family from a sustainable diet of edible vegetation found in her local parks and garden as much as possible.
Select site-specific performance/installations include: WHISPERING VOICES (2015); whisper to me... (2015); segment I [in respect for food] (2015); AESCULAPIAN HARVEST [in respect for food] (2015); re-sounding the landscape: BRONX (2016); WHISPERS IN THE AIR (2016); Making the ROUNDS (2016); re-creation (2016); BECOMING THEM: a fantasy narrative on our relationship to our tech devices (2016); RUN:rabbit (2016), IDEAS IN THE AIR, a conversation with Fritjov Capra (2016); this is NOT a dance | this is not a composition (2017).
Resident artist/recipient of NOoSPHERE Circle of Fire Performance Art Grant, artist-in-residence at Santa Fe Art Institute's first themed residency (FOOD JUSTICE), resident at Art Monastery Italia, Autumn participated along with Art Monastery and RETE in the development of the first Caramanico Teatri D'Arte (a Pescara), currently collaborates with Pepe Coronado/ Coronado Print Studio and has an upcoming installation/performance with Art in FLUX.
Past/present collaborators include: biologist/TEDtalk veteran Sara Lewis, naturalist Gabriel Willow, Eric Sanderson (author of Mannahatta), Chef Joel Coleman, Katy Gunn, Sol Kjok, Suprina, Kid Lucky, Maria Hupfield, RSM, Shaman Misha Nogha, Jeanine Alfieri, Alexis Elton, Anthony Collins.
She is also a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, has taught flying trapeze, worked as a zookeeper, has performed as an aerialist worldwide, among other teaching, writing, choreography, and performance credits.
Autumn lives in Harlem.
Her current practice includes a series of ongoing performative, installation-based, site specific and community engagement/action explorations. On paper, she is currently creating works by gathering plant matter and other found objects, then burning or boiling or otherwise manipulating to create dyes, inks, paints and drawing materials. Text art becomes the basis for further performance exploration and inspiration for the creation of her upcoming workshops and projects. She is also an urban forager/scavenger, feeding herself and her family from a sustainable diet of edible vegetation found in her local parks and garden as much as possible.
Select site-specific performance/installations include: WHISPERING VOICES (2015); whisper to me... (2015); segment I [in respect for food] (2015); AESCULAPIAN HARVEST [in respect for food] (2015); re-sounding the landscape: BRONX (2016); WHISPERS IN THE AIR (2016); Making the ROUNDS (2016); re-creation (2016); BECOMING THEM: a fantasy narrative on our relationship to our tech devices (2016); RUN:rabbit (2016), IDEAS IN THE AIR, a conversation with Fritjov Capra (2016); this is NOT a dance | this is not a composition (2017).
Resident artist/recipient of NOoSPHERE Circle of Fire Performance Art Grant, artist-in-residence at Santa Fe Art Institute's first themed residency (FOOD JUSTICE), resident at Art Monastery Italia, Autumn participated along with Art Monastery and RETE in the development of the first Caramanico Teatri D'Arte (a Pescara), currently collaborates with Pepe Coronado/ Coronado Print Studio and has an upcoming installation/performance with Art in FLUX.
Past/present collaborators include: biologist/TEDtalk veteran Sara Lewis, naturalist Gabriel Willow, Eric Sanderson (author of Mannahatta), Chef Joel Coleman, Katy Gunn, Sol Kjok, Suprina, Kid Lucky, Maria Hupfield, RSM, Shaman Misha Nogha, Jeanine Alfieri, Alexis Elton, Anthony Collins.
She is also a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, has taught flying trapeze, worked as a zookeeper, has performed as an aerialist worldwide, among other teaching, writing, choreography, and performance credits.
Autumn lives in Harlem.
