UP IN ARMS

"A project bridging history, media, action, and introspection, the resulting alchemy is an artistic process which cracks you open, reflects your humanity back to you while encouraging you to feel the complexities of your racialized body in relationship to another. Or put more simply: this project promotes healing and repairing relationships that have been decimated by white supremacy." - Nicole Brewer

Up in Arms is a transmedia performance project that removes the boundaries between process and product, utilizing performance, visual art, and social practice. Created by Anna-Maria Nabirye and Annie Saunders, participants are invited, two at a time, to re-embody and re-create the iconic 1971 portrait of activists and friends Dorothy Pitman-Hughes and Gloria Steinem. In doing so, the artists create a space for meaningful dialogue around racism, feminism, and friendship.

The project consists of multiple engagement points: the intimate portrait and dialogue experience for two friends, colleagues, or family members, the documentation of that process (which is edited into a multimedia live performance by the artists as a part of the engagement), and the resulting “final products” -- the footage, audio and portraits -- which comprise a visual art installation. Using the materials generated through residency and installation, the artists are compiling a book project, the Up in Arms Handbook for Intersectional Collaboration.