Kirsten Leenaars Exhibits in Milwaukee Until January

Fri, Aug 17 - Thu, Jan 17  2019

Haggerty Museum of Art - Chicago Consulate Region

Kirsten Leenaars her exhibition “(Re)Housing the American Dream” will run from August 17, 2018 until January 17, 2019 at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, WI. Additionally, a solo exhibition will be featured at York College Galleries in York, Pennsylvania from September 6th until Ocotber 12th.

“(Re)Housing the American Dream: Freedom Principles” © Kirsten Leenaars

“(Re)housing the American Dream” is a cumulative performative documentary project (2015-ongoing) that explores the role of film as political action. The experimental multi-year documentary project follows a group of American and refugee youths, growing up in contemporary America, through the collective making of performative video and text-based work exploring the construct of the American Dream. The production period is structured as an annual summer camp in which the works are developed through collaborative processes with the participants. The produced work reflects on current socio-political issues, their lived experiences, individual perspectives, and their collective imagination. The annual works cumulatively inform each other and tell the story of a resilient, diverse, opinioned group of youngsters.

“(Re)Housing the American Dream: Freedom Principles” © Kirsten Leenaars

“(Re)Housing the American Dream: Freedom Principles” explores the historical, cultural and personal notions of freedom through performative actions that have been developed collectively during a one-week intensive film production. The group spent a significant amount of their time exploring the roots to various freedom struggles in Milwaukee, specifically looking to the speech and actions of the youth chapter of the NAACP, who were instrumental in leading a number of civil rights protests in the city in the 1960s. Together, the artist and participants moved throughout the city, visiting the different historical sites where important civil rights actions took place. Marking, building, commemorating, (re)claiming, imagining, occupying, embodying, framing, performing, transmitting many faceted ways freedom can take form.

“(Re)Housing the American Dream: Freedom Principles” © Kirsten Leenaars

August 17, 2018 – January 17, 2019

Haggerty Museum of Art, at Marquette University
530 N 13th St, Milwaukee

September 6, 2018 – October 12, 2018

York College Galleries
Wolf Hall, 441 Country Club Rd, York

Exhibition: http://www.marquette.edu/haggerty/kirsten-leenaars3.php

Project: https://rehousingtheamericandream.wordpress.com/

• Director/Editor: Kirsten Leenaars;
• Assistant Director: Lindsey Barlag-Thornton; 
• Camera: Ellie Hall and Orlando Pinder;
• Sound: Jimmy Schauss;
• Production Assistants: Li Ming Hu and Zachary Hutchinson; 
• Composer: Paul Deuth