Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies

Performing Resilience / For the Birds

Megan Moe Beitiks & Kenya (Robinson)

April 14, 2022
Ustler Hall Atrium
5:30 PM (EST)

In this live performance/conversation, artists and frequent collaborators Meghan Moe Beitiks and Kenya (Robinson) will discuss human/nonhuman ecologies and how experiences of marginalization may produce ecological wisdom.

The publication of Beitiks’ recent book, Performing Resilience for Systemic Pain(2021), prompts a point of ecological discussion for ideas that (Robinson) addresses in works like For the Birds, BLIXEL: The (Re)Stock Image Project, The Golden Tablets of THOT, and HOOD TALES. (Robinson) was a pre-publication reader for Performing Resilience, and her reading and annotation of the book led them to their current projects.

Their most recent collaboration, Breath^work, is a multidimensional article forthcoming in the journal Performance Research: Beitiks contributed an academic text on breath and performance, and (Robinson) edited the article with images and visual annotations. In the forthcoming HOOD TALES: the annotated text, their collaboration will include contributions by an incarcerated woman of color, who will compose the text for one of (Robinson)’s HOOD TALES book covers. Beitiks will edit the text, adding footnotes and a forward to give academic audiences an appropriate context for the project.

“Performing Resilience / For the Birds” is an opportunity for Beitiks, (Robinson), and their audience to reflect on and unpack artistic and activist dialogues on race, gender, sexuality, and the nonhuman, and the multiple ecologies within which they are entwined.

This event is free and open to the public. No advance registration is required. See https://imagining-climate.clas.ufl.edu for more information.

Face Coverings Expected During Indoor Campus Events

This event adheres to the University of Florida’s guidelines for campus events during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including the expectation that all attendees will wear approved face coverings at all times during this event and within buildings even if they are vaccinated. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with and adhere to the University’s guidelines for campus operations during the pandemic.

About the Speakers

Meghan Moe Beitiks is an artist working with associations and dissociations of culture/nature/structure. She analyzes perceptions of ecology though the lenses of site, history, emotions, and her own body to produce work that analyzes relationships with the non-human. She is currently an Interdisciplinary Studio Art Lecturer at the University of Florida.

Kenya (Robinson) is a mischief maker from Gainesville, Florida.

“Performing Resilience/ For the Birds” is sponsored by Imagining Climate Change and the Center for Gender, Sexualities & Women’s Studies Research. “For the Birds” illustration appears with kind permission of Alma Elaine Shoaf.