Self-Talk: Interactive Puppets With Artist Kat Geng-Caraballo
Saturday, June 15 • 1–2:30PM
Intended for Participants Aged 18+
In the Galleries • FREE • Please RSVP
As part of Experience Art: The Sixth AIM Biennial (Part Two) Closing Event, you can take part in a unique interactive puppet activity with artist Kat Geng-Caraballo. Geng Caraballo completed The Bronx Museum’s flagship AIM Fellowship program in 2021 and currently has work on view in our galleries in Part Two of Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial.
It is free to participate in this activity, and drop-ins are welcome, but please let us know if you plan to stop by with an RSVP.
ABOUT SELF-TALK
The artist describes her activity as follows:
Self-Talk is a public activation of Kat Geng-Caraballo’s figurative soft sculptures from two confessional-like booths.
In Self-Talk, participants explore the non-verbal ways in which we communicate our emotions to ourselves and the possibilities that these revelations may provide.
Guided prompts, musical switches, and rotating wheels— resulting from conversations between Summer Johnke, Licensed Master Social Worker, and the artist—create space for participants to improvise, play, and interact with each other and different sides of themselves.
The pair of fabric figures—one emoting a peaceful joy, the other in a state of suffering—are sewn from the same inverted cloth to reflect two halves of a whole “Self.”
Through a “choose-your-own-adventure” process, participants are offered a space to drop into a more whole sense of the “Self” that is playful, creative, and capable of deep and radical compassion.
Self-Talk asks: How do joy and suffering coexist in a moment? What do we create within the presence of both? How can we provide space and nurture both without invalidating the other?
In her films and community engagements, Geng-Caraballo encourages improvised participation. Her goal is to create environments that nurture play and shared experiences for adults as they engage with topics including mental health, belonging, identity, and their relationship to themselves.
These exercises are especially intended for grownups as the artist believes adults often become the most removed from such forms of interaction.
Geng-Caraballo worked closely with Johnke to define how participants would be invited to interact in this activity.
The collaborators played with the concepts of identity and the many parts of the “Self,” weaving in ideas from “Internal Family Systems” and other trauma-informed, mindfulness-based approaches.
Please Note: Select interactions will be filmed and recorded. The recordings will serve as both documentation and as material for a video work resulting from the public engagement. This event is specifically designed for adults ages 18 and up.
In-process peek at Geng-Caraballo’s Self-Talk booths, which will premiere in their full, completed glory at The Bronx Museum on June 15, 2024 with brand new special edition figurative soft sculptures and lots of new bells and whistles.
About Kat Geng Carabello
Geng-Caraballo earned a B.A. in Art History from Bard College. After that, she began her objects training in art conservation at The Williamstown Art Conservation Center at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts. In addition to solo shows at NIAD Art Center (CA), Counterpulse (SF) and Royal Nonesuch Gallery (CA), Geng-Caraballo’s art practice has been supported by grants, fellowships and residencies including BRIC Arts Media (NYC), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (CO), The Foundation House (CT), Vermont Studio Center (VT), and NYFA. Geng-Caraballo was a 2021 AIM Fellow at The Bronx Museum.
