Kitchen-ness
Artist: Autumn Knight
Location: 2308 Truxillo, Kitchen
I got involved with this project because I had been involved with other VBB projects in the past, but never a Living Room Art production. I was also excited about working with the other artists: Pruitt, Nate, M’Kina. I produced a site specific performance piece located in the kitchen of the first house. The piece fused Sehba Sarwar’s footage from Karachi which featured men making bread, with my own live movements where I simulated different steps of the same process. Sehba’s Urdu translation of my own short story about Third Ward played in the background of the video. The performance was about fusing, overlapping the two cultures, locations as much as possible. The movement is inspired by old and contemporary black women and the measured pace of the men in the video. I was very satisfied with the outcome. The smoke detector going off truly made it a live performance!
I got a brief education about other aspects of Karachi culture beyond the turmoil, violence associated with the city in the media. I truly enjoyed the introduction to what kind of art Karachi artists are engaged in.
—Autumn Knight, performance artist.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
AUTUMN KNIGHT (THIRD WARD, HOUSTON) has performed internationally with Elevator Repair Service and is a co-founder of Jelly Jar, a performance-based collective. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Speech Communications from Dillard University and Master of Arts in Drama Therapy from New York University. Knight received additional acting training at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama.