Ascend: a Site for Social Practice

“Woven Intersections is a place to dream into the radical potential of play. The installation, Ascend, can be read as a visual metaphor for interdependence and cross-coalition building.” – Teague McDaniel

Woven Intersections

Running June 28 through July 26, this multi-week exhibition features the interactive sculptural installation, Ascend, by Teague McDaniel (he/they/zi). The work creates a place and time for performances, workshops, and community events like a dance party—all designed to uplift voices and reimagine public space as a site of dialogue and radical creativity.

According to the NoBo Bus Stop Director, Nod Norkus, “This isn’t just an art show—it’s an invitation to experience what a thriving, inclusive, and artist-centered Front Range can look like. This all-out artistic takeover is unlike anything Boulder has seen—an immersive, high-touch experience fusing visual art, performance, activism, healing, and community-driven connection.”

Final Event Details

You can join the last set of performances on the evening of July 26 starting at 6:00 p.m. A number of local artists will grapple with a range of topics including growing up queer and disabled embodiment. One of the performances features performance artist MG Bernard (she/they/ugh) who will crawl in a hospital gown along Broadway Ave. in North Boulder from Ascend to East Window Gallery.

MG Bernard

This will be the debut performance of The Things They Carry. According to the artist, “The Things They Carry will be a durational performance equating physical weight with the financial, emotional, and systemic burdens of the medical industrial complex.” Starting at 6:30 p.m., Bernard will move on their hands and knees from NoBo Bus Stop Gallery to East Window chained to sixty-five pill bottles filled with concrete and lead shot capsules—a visceral confrontation of the complex ableism embedded in our institutions and social structures.

Themes of ableism, accessibility, and activist exhaustion are things that ugh confronts through not only their art but also through her daily life. Bernard often shares a Disability Access Rider with galleries ugh plans to work with. They explained to OFM that they were able to adapt their Access Rider from open templates by other sick/disabled people including Johanna Hedva and Alexandrina Hemsley.

MG and Teague share a commitment to disability access through their artwork and active efforts in negotiating accessibility with galleries. In “Woven Intersections,” Teague supported the gallery in developing an access description for all events. Teague shared that “Writing the access description was a part of the piece. So is hosting workshops, performances, a pop-up gift shop, and throwing a dance party.”

Social Practice Art

This category of art is often referred to as Social Practice Art. Teague explains, “In social practice, the artist is something of a choreographer of circumstances for people to participate in. It can be as if the artist’s paint is human connections and the canvas is the site. Any visual outcome is a byproduct of the material—experience—and not the artwork itself. This exhibition is mostly about experiences, and I think of it as a social practice show. The featured installation, Ascend, is separate in that it is a site-specific installation—and while it is separate, it also creates something of a ‘stage’ where performers and the audience can respond to the metaphorical and material properties of Ascend.

“My biggest hope for this show was to create a place where people could gather and share their own creative visions. I wanted to introduce people who wouldn’t have a context to meet one another otherwise. That’s why when you look at the topics of programming, you see everything from dance to an erotic, queer, embodied poetry writing workshop.“

Other Collaborators

Teague was excited to have a chance to engage a with a wide range of people and groups. They share, “We were able to host a workshop for disabled adults by engaging a disability day service center. We also brought in professional artists like, MG who is a transdisciplinary artist, educator, and crip witch, to work alongside student artists.” They selected MG alongside local artists Celi Torres and Elle Hong to perform and work with student artists from MSU Denver including Miles Zotti, Ryan Dorman, CJ Swain, Bridget Ebert, and Alyssa Williams.

Miles Zotti (he/him) and ryan lee dorman (he/him) will also be performing on July 26. Miles will be preforming a spoken word performance honoring the memory of Palestinian children lost to colonial violence. His piece invites deep reflection, grief, and accountability. Miles is a Denver-based, multidisciplinary transmasculine artist working at the intersection of queer identity, decolonization, and digital media. Alongside this and MG’s performance, Ryan will be performing a hard thing to do. In this quietly reflective piece, the artist performs repetitive action turns sunflower seeds and memory into a meditation. In the process, he highlights the invisible labor of queer survival and the fragility of connection.

Find Out More

Find out more about the many creatives and mutual aid groups who engaged with “Woven Intersections” at ciiart.org/wovenintersections.  You can get tickets for the final event at Eventbrite. Thank you to MSU Denver for the generous sponsorship of this exhibition.