2015 Press

• A Beast In The Jungle: http://abeastinajungle.com/preview-this-is-what-i-want/ (photo gallery retrospective of festival history)

• CultureBot: http://www.culturebot.org/2015/05/24017/this-is-what-i-want-festival-2015/ (interview between co-curator crystal am nelson & Cristina Victor's ass)

• BrokeAssStewart: http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2015/05/22/nude-night-at-this-is-what-i-want-festival/

• SF Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/desire-in-focus-at-counterpulse-fest/Content?oid=2931207

• SF Weekly: http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/this-is-what-i-want/Event?oid=3643350

• BayWatchBayWatch Review: http://baywatchbaywatch.com/2015/06/13/queer-divestment-a-response-to-this-is-what-i-want-2015/#more-222

2015 Audience Quotes

“This is the best thing I’ve been to in the Bay Area” - Julia Harvard

“You can really tell the work that has gone into this, behind the scenes, it seems like an amazing group of people. What an amazing atmosphere.” - Ama Budge

"It captured a spirit of San Francisco that I thought had died with 848. It's so important that its happening in the Bay still." - Jess Curtis

"I thought this kind of work had died when the artists moved out of SF.  I'm so inspired you guys are keeping it alive." - anonymous

“I'm still under impression of last night's performance, especially of the last piece. Incredible!” - Dasha

“It’s really unique. Never seen anything like it.” - Wendy Blank

“It was so cool. I’m kind of overwhelmed.” - Katie Oswell

"intense and eye opening” - Wendy Vasta

“You should take this on tour. The world needs to see this.” - Martha Victor

"This show is outstanding. Bravo." - Ian Waisler

"Just so good." - Margit Galanter

About Cristina Victor's piece: "incredible, powerful, beautiful, talented, gracias." - anonymous

"Thank you artists, curators, organizers and volunteers, for a moving, exciting, (thought)provoking evening of powerful work!!! I'm so glad I got to experience it." - Ronja Verr

"Such a strong and good community feeling, super inspiring." - Rachael

You dealt so well with identity/race, colonialism in the work - Camille

"So amazing to experience the generosity of both the audience and artists" - Julie Phelps

Cristina Victor is an interdisciplinary San Francisco based, Cuban hyphen American artist born and raised in the transience capital that is Miami. The daughter of Cuban exiles, Victor’s work plays with the inheritance of the exile experience and notions of displacement. Through performance/food events, video and installation, Victor creates environments where language, parody, fiction, contradiction and nostalgia are all ingredients to addressing the complexities of framing and questioning identity. Victor’s work explores authenticity and latino identity through re-appropriation of stereotypes, engaging audiences in a dialogue about how identity is constructed and digested. Victor earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

You can view more of Cristina's work at: http://cristinavictor.com/ 

Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa is a performance artist, writer, and psychogeographer. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally. Previously, she directed the arts organization (a)eromestiza. Her writing has been published in Performance Research, Social Justice Journal, Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays and Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory / Theorizing the Filipina American Experience. She has received awards from Core77, Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, the San Francisco Art Commission, the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, and the National Association for Latino Art and Culture. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford. 

You can view more of Gigi's work at www.gigiotalvaro.com

Jason Wyman is the co-founder of 14 Black Poppies, an intergenerational, intercultural production company at the intersection of art, community, wellness, and civics. Wyman values collaboration, openness, compassion, and integrity in his work and life. His work is rooted in themes of social justice, intersectionality, and belonging. He lives near San Francisco General Hospital with his beautiful husband and his pride of feral cats. He dreams a San Francisco that once was and will be again. 

For more information, please check out the 14 Black Poppies website at www.14blackpoppies.com 

Wills cultivated a community of queer-identified people to explore the themes of the festival, and desire as a sociopolitical force. Wills designed the course with participatory practice of mind and body, lectures, presentations from the performing artists, and space to make work responses of their own. If you came to the show, you might have seen some of the storytellers in the beginning of the night against the wall.

Wills invited storytellers to be critically and bodily engaged, and so participants pulled apart and voiced our responses to the artists work - whilst working for ourselves. This community project has navigated unchartered territory, a facilitated opportunity to go deep into exploring personal desires. Like a small group of rebels, storytellers were inspired to meet in small corners, move, listen, share, watch, and uncover our stories - the ones that lie below the earth unannounced, until one stops to listen and hears the quiet rumble of something ready to be revealed. This project is Wills' creative output. 

These are the 2015 Storytellers. Click on their image to see more about their story.

2015 Storytellers:

Ferrara Brain, Pavini Moray, Erich Eich, Thom Vee, Trouve Ivo, Tiara Paedia, Devin, Elizabeth Cooper, Captain, Jess Zita Bennett & Cindy Dewitt 

Led & guided by TIWIW artistic director, Tessa Wills

ARTISTICALLY DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY:

 Tessa Wills

Tessa Wills is an artist working around themes of desire, professional mourning, sex work and hermits. She has artistically directed TIWIW since 2012.

GUEST CURATOR 2015:

crystal am nelson

 crystal am nelson is a scholar and artist who focuses on race, gender, sexuality, and representation. She holds an MFA in photography from San Francisco Art Institute, and she is currently a PhD student in the History of Art and Visual Culture Program at UC Santa Cruz. She has held numerous residencies, including most recently with Fieldwork Marfa, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and the McColl Center for Visual Art. Her curatorial work includes events/projects at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Queen’s Nails Annex in San Francisco, and David Castillo Gallery in Miami. She won a 2013 apexart Franchise curatorial grant for the group exhibition Heterotopia, and she is currently working on a group exhibition titled Dark Desires, which explores black female sexualities. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Art Practical, and Identity Theory, among other places.

 http://criticalriot.tumblr.com 

http://crystalamnelson.com