Transcendence

Tahtianna Candy Fermin in collaboration with photographer Chae Kihn, Lexii Foxx, Kaiya, Kammy-Rae, Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), Ameirah Neal, Ren Light Pan, Alethia Rael, and a film produced by Pilar Adara

Organized by Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo)

The artist, Puppies Puppies, has throughout her career declared unexpected objects, places, and actions as art. Though she used to obscure her identity by famously sleeping through studio visits and showing up in costumes to her own exhibition openings, she recently revealed her identity as an Indigenous/Japanese/2S+ trans woman. No longer willing to hide, she now uses her name, Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo, and asserts art in the everyday of her own life which is centered around the trans community that emerged from a protest group that gathered every week for over a year at Stonewall.

When Performance Space New York asked Kuriki-Olivo to do a commission she extended the invitation to her community of collaborators and trans sisters. Together they proposed to launch the TGNC Resilience Gala and Awards honoring leaders in the trans/GNC/2S+ community. Manifesting the saying, “Give Black trans women their roses while they’re still alive,” the performance-filled award show is set along a glamorous runway beneath cascading roses and extends into this group exhibition that features a film about the group and serves as a platform for lectures, performances, concerts, open mics, and an Octopus event on March 15.