Director Biography - Joni Renee Whitworth, Amelia Okabayashi

Okabayashi:

Pacific Northwest based interdisciplinary artist, designer, musician, and mystic, Amelia Ralston-Okabayashi (aka Mealz) has been honing her skills as a technologist in order to produce interactive new media work that includes installation, experiential events, and multimedia. Originally an electronic musician with a background in digital production she has evolved her practice to include creative coding, electronic engineering, fabrication, experiential and generative art.

She is currently exploring art processes that allow her to convey the interconnectivity of our existence with spiritual, biological and technological practices. Using tarot as one of her mediums she performs experiential improvised explorations to be self interpreted by each participant.

Whitworth:

​Joni Renee Whitworth is a poet, producer, and curator from rural Oregon. They have performed at The Moth, the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art alongside Marina Abramovic.

​Whitworth served as the inaugural Artist in Residence at Portland Parks and Recreation, Poet in Residence for Oregon State University's Trillium Project, and 2020 Queer Hero for the Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest. They attended the 2020 Tin House Workshop for young adult fiction and are an upcoming fellow for Lambda Literary's Writer's Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices.

Director Statement

towards women.





Ratings

In contemporary American culture, the preparation of food is widely considered to be women's work. I wink at this assumption by using food as a channel for desire, showcasing the body as the spiritual house. Knowing that queer people are often othered in religious spaces, I create a world where they can be embraced.

This piece is a collaboration with my friend Amelia Okabayashi, who sourced and edited the archival footage and designed all of the music. We use the visual metaphor of ballet, a somewhat violent art form that relies on women making themselves smaller. Okabayashi's contribution here is meaningful because collaboration is a central aspect of queerness. Together, we hope for social transformation and posit a world with reduced cultural violence towards women.