Namir Fearce

I’m Building Me a Home

Artist in Residence Capstone Exhibition

October 4, 2019 – November 3, 2019

“I’m Building Me a Home” is a multi media installation and film piece by Fall 2019 Artist in Residence, Namir Fearce, in response to the collections and exhibitions at the International Museum of Surgical Science. In it, Fearce weaves a nest/cocoon in the shape of a storm system—a site for the Black American conscience to restore, recall, exalt and project itself into. “I’m Building Me a Home” realizes the Black American body as a medium of pleasure and affliction, exaltation and exhaustion, and ultimately a site of resistance in its ability to transpose, adapt, collapse, remember and re-imagine.

Throughout his residency, Fearce explored sites and histories of pain and the body. Pain comes in all forms: some temporary, others that linger on. Acute pain is the brain’s way of signaling that something is harming the body. Chronic pain is much more vexing and difficult to treat. It is pain with no end in sight, lasting for weeks, months or years.

This body of work explores the memory of a near fatal childhood experience, allowing Fearce to relate to the Museum in terms of mortality, the body and healing.The installation weaves a narrative and creates a space for Fearce to perform, project into and navigate. The materials of the space are linked to a near-fatal self hanging accident, reconciling and realizing his personal relationship with rope, its potential as a building material, and its cultural, spiritual and historical place in a larger collective futurity. Materials used in “I’m Building Me a Home” include readily accessible building and fishing materials—ropes, twine, steel and ladders—to transform the space into something that acts like a habitat. The space is activated through several acts of suspension, accompanied by the film “I’m Building Me A Home” and audioscape.

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Namir Fearce is an interdisciplinary artist residing in Chicago, by way of North Minneapolis. His practices include experimental film, sculpture, painting, audio and performance. Fluidity is central to his practice, drawing on a constellation of references and sites of Black American queer experience. He uses these histories, both personal and cultural, to weave complex, emotional and political landscapes while exploring the potential bodies, identities and stories that can arise in these newly woven domestic spaces. Fearce is a 3rd year BFA candidate at the School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His work has been featured in Red Bull Music Academy, Paper Magazine, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Walker Arts Center, Soap Factory and more.

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This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Header Image: Installation View, Namir Fearce