christalena hughmanick

interactive performance at A! Performance Festival, Listasafnið á Akureyri, October 2024

made in collaboration with Clare Aimee

materials: cotton curtains naturally dyed with krækiber (foraged crowberries), wood frame, handkerchiefs naturally dyed with krækiber, essential oil mixed scents

in this piece, participants are guided through a multi-sensory meditation in order to help them articulate their geographical, spiritual and emotional locations in the universe, asking "where are you on the timeline?"

photo credit: Daníel Starrason & Tristan Zand

interactive performance

nylistasafnið, august 2023

written archive by Karólina Rós

materials Included: blue velvet octagon, linen handkerchiefs naturally dyed with krækiber (crowberries), iron and pomegranate, made in collaboration with Clare Aimee.

three scents designed to represent past, present & future, which are now a part of Nylistasafnið's permanent collection, the first scent to be archived in the gallery.

guests were invited into the octagon one at a time to undergo a time travel meditation, where they are given the choice of past, present and future after experiencing each option. their choice was then sprayed onto the naturally dyed handkerchief, which they were able to take home with them.

2020 - 21

In the first month of an artist residency in Iceland, I did a performance called a ‘consideration’. My fellow residents, defined as ‘seekers’ were asked to quiet the mind and locate a secret within. Together, we will create a void in waking reality that allows for new growth -- only you know what you need. They each chose a sculpture, defined as an ‘option’, that I made in collaboration with time and a distant volcano. Paint made of red ochre collected from below the outdoor stairs of the residence was added to each option in order to locate the time and place. Seekers placed their option on a chosen part of the body while internally considering its physical properties and current state of existence. Through this exercise we visualized individual desires as planetary wonders that merged with and found a home in the options.

In my final week of the residency, and six months later, I hiked into the erupting volcano at Fagradalsfjall with all of the options used during the performance. In a gesture of reflection and transmutation, I threw them into the very end of the lava river as it inched over the ground.

Download mp3 of lava field recording HERE.

Hear more about this project in my interview with the Art Uncovered Podcast HERE.

April 7, 2023

CANVAS International Art Fair, Venice Italy

materials: natural dyed clothing, tuning forks, found lava, resin, cyanotype fabric

June 9, 2018

Lawrence & Clark Gallery

materials: found concrete, plasti-dip

PRESS RELEASE

SOUNDTRACK DOWNLOAD

March 30, 2018

Triumph Gallery

materials: found concrete, rubber, plywood, clay, cotton rope, light fixture, speakers, wall vinyl, rubber mat

This installation and performance series was part of the exhibition D E C I D E. C O M M I T. T H R I V E. with The Morphotransverse Method at Triumph Gallery March 10 - April 9, 2018.

PRESS RELEASE DOWNLOAD

SOUND TRACK DOWNLOAD

2022

Collaboration with Björn Hugason

Icelandic sheep wool, buttons, thread, a walk

Pilgrims Walking mp3 track

Rain on a Lake mp3 track

Pilgrimage is concerned with proximity; the presence meets the absence. Soil and rain transform outer garments through time and movement. Coverings constructed by hand stitching felted Icelandic wool are dyed naturally through five days of walking. This work aims to return lost senses to the viewer through visual intimacy and a pilgrimage to arrive. It began with a letter stating the proposed project that never arrived.

May 22, 2019

closing performance for Rope a necklace to my tongue

Photos by Isaac Campbell

hydrocal plaster, cadmium red pigment, plastic wine cups, mixing tool, bucket

January 28, 2018

This group exhibition took an experimental format of a theater production in four acts, curated by Ruslana Lichzter. Each artist had the opportunity to contribute a work, responding directly to the previous artist without removing anything from the gallery which allowed the works to accumulate on top of one another. The curator acted as a facilitator, providing only a gallery and rules which artists had the choice to follow or disregard. For my role as the Archivist, I took plaster casts of footprint impressions that were made in the ash by gallery visitors to the previous opening event. My final works intend to record the ubiquitous and fleeting act of a human footstep. 

This show has been written about by Jae Wook Lee and Brit Barton

Photo credit Triumph Gallery

May 14, 2021

Collaboration with Marianne Villière

Read our Manifesto for Freedom

This performance invoked the robed Roman goddess--the Statue of Liberty--in both New York, where it currently resides and Paris where it was constructed. Christalena and Marianne will perform simultaneously as friends, considering the original intent of the gift between their countries in 1886. The action will incarnate the symbol of freedom through a mirrored garment and mask that reflect the faces of the people they engage in conversation with. They will ask the passersby: “what is liberty for you?” and answers were collected through writing and field recordings.

Christalena was located at Little Island in New York City and Marianne at the Statue of Liberty in Paris. Part of the Art In Odd Places Performance Art Festival.  

Photo credit: András Ladocsi

Written response gloss to images taken by Kay Hannahan taken with a Chaika camera

2018

cast soft, tackle plastic, fishing line, PVC pipe, fossilized amber, myrrh, seaweed & bergamot oils

April 7 & 8, 2017

Dinner Party was a performative exhibition of scent at Tusk. The one hour event was a progression of custom scents, objects, writing, and presentations by Lindsey French, Joshua Kent, Matt Morris, Danielle Rosen, myself and an introductory scent-based “cocktail” by Mary Eleanor Wallace and Kate Sierzputowski.

VIDEO CLIP

This event was written about in the Chicago Reader

Photo credit: David Sampson

June 2019 - February 2020

The Freedom Quilt is a project designed to unite people around the topic of free speech and democracy through a series of public events and creation of a collectively made artwork. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Socialist regime change and the formation of the Hungarian Patchwork Guild in 1989, eight workshops were held at US Embassy American Corners locations, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem and Brody Studios. During these free of cost workshops, I provided a lecture on American Patchwork quilting traditions and their connections to cultural diversity, creative expression and storytelling. Participants were given basic sewing and appliqué skills with materials in order to design and create a 40cm by 40cm quilt block based on the prompt “what does freedom mean to you?” In addition, The Hungarian Patchwork Guild circulated a call for blocks amongst experienced quilters all over the country which were mailed to me for inclusion.

The primary material choice for this work was kékfestö cloth which is a resist indigo dye technique that holds a particular significance in the cultural and political history of Hungary. In preparation for this project, I visited three current producers around the country and conducted interviews about the practices evolution since the country became a Socialist Satellite state. The collected blocks were sewn into one large quilt by members of the Hungarian Patchwork Guild in the style of a public quilting bee at the Skanzen Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum in Hungary. In US quilting history, this slow hand work inherently lent to the sharing of skills, news and practical information in a social manner which was not experienced by quilters in Hungary until 1989 when the newly sovereign government allowed non-profit organizations to form.

An edition of 100 risograph printed books was released at Közben in Budapest and Andrew Refacz Gallery in Chicago (purchase or download here). Designed by Ryan Ingebritson and printed by RisoPlant Budapest, the publication doubles as an exhibition catalog and instruction manual for creating a selection of twelve blocks made by Guild member contributions to the quilt. Included in this book is an essay by myself that outlines the series of events and how their foundational goal of cross-cultural exchange between Hungary and the United States was achieved.

Christalena’s text Freedom Quilt: Collective Patchwork In Post-Communist Hungary has been published through the Textile Society of America. You can watch a recording of her presentation to the TSA’s 2020 Symposium HERE.

This work has been written about by Lori Waxman HERE and Hall W. Rockefeller HERE.

Images and info on quilt have been added to The Quilt Index online archive, which is a digital humanities research and education project of Matrix: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences at Michigan State University. 

Check out our social media at IG: freedom_quilt_hungary and Facebook: Freedom Quilt-Hungary.

Collaboration with Sarah Jones

2011

2012

sculpture, installation, performance and video

Through a constructed environment within the gallery space, a series of work sessions were conducted over the course of the exhibition. 30 shelves for thirty years of the artists life are removed from their wall mounts, carried, splayed, layered and stacked to create a series of formal arrangements. The shelves are cut to the width and height of artists body. This futile and at some points absurd act employs physical labor as a means of production and seeks no apparent end. The self and the shelf remain empty awaiting multifarious forms of fulfillment. A link to the live performance can be found HERE. This piece was curated by groupa o.k. as part of the MFA exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012 and more information can be found HERE.

Performance & Installation

clay, MDF board, metal brackets, screws, pencil, ruler, stool

2012

Within the broad and overarching realm of object production and consumption this durational performance work follows the complete life cycle of an object. The quickly made, unfired, clay reproductions of a Colonial Era porringer are used and discarded through the act of chewing and biting and the life of each object is recorded through a wall tracing.

live performance, video installation, screen print edition of 20

June 2012

Throughout the opening reception at Western Exhibitions the artists delivered a series of questions to large pieces of broken concrete. The rugged forms alternate between the performers and are held in a position to receive and mediate the flow of inquiry.  This work culminates a two-year conversation between the two about love and desire, physicality and the sublime, but does not likely conclude it.

Land surveying is a technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the Earth and are often used to establish land maps and boundaries for land ownership. It has been used since the beginning of recorded history and is used in the planning and execution of nearly every form of construction including roads, railways, reservoirs, dams, retaining walls, bridges and buildings. 

For this piece sculptures were made to match measurements of the artists body. These include hip to foot, end of middle finger to elbow, foot to knee, length of hand and length of foot. During the opening reception of Garden Party these parts of the body are used as units of measurement by the artist to mark distances between individual audience members and the sculptures. These distances have been recorded in number form on the back of each sculpture. 

This work was part of Hinge Gallery’s inaugural sculpture garden show Garden Party features the work of four artists dealing with the length of time things last. Curated by Karolina Gnatowski with a catalog essay by Dan Gunn HERE.