Li(sa E.) Harris: This is the Day

Li(sa E.) Harris (aka “Li”) opens This is the Day in John M. O’Quinn Gallery, on Thursday, February 15 from 5 – 7 PM. This exhibition will culminate on Monday, April 8 from 12:30 – 3:01 PM with Li’s performance Onshore Trilling: What to Do When the Earth Sings the Bruise in Lawndale’s outdoor space at 4900 Main Street. Taking place during the total solar eclipse over Texas, this performance will tap into the cosmic cycles of the earth and sky.

Li’s practice focuses on the energetic relationships between body, land, spirit, and place. She uses voice, theremin, electronics, movement, improvisation, meditation, and new media to explore healing in performance and everyday living. Often, her projects unfold over time in acts. For This is the Day, Li will assemble photography, analog technology, video, and resonant sounds that reflect a survey of her past artistic practice, especially her work Onshore Trilling and Please Have a Seat.

Li’s performance Onshore Trilling simultaneously references Houston’s offshore drilling industry—key to its economy as a world capital for oil and gas—and the history of the Blues in the Deep South, which, as Harris shares, were invented by “enslaved persons, previously enslaved persons, and their descendants, like me.”

“Trilling” is a musical term describing the fast oscillation between two pitches; it is vibration and energy. This is The Day. includes relics and electronics from Li’s family, fused together to fill the gallery space with frequencies that erode in relation to the respective battery life of each object. Overhead, perforated sails mimic the sky, reminding us of ever-present cosmic constellations which orient our earth and dream spaces.

For visitors’ navigation, the center of the gallery includes something that could be—a boom, a cannon, a telescope peering northward, bringing 4900 Main Street (where the eclipse performance will take place) into focus.