Jaime Iglehart

Postal Service: A Post Office for Crucial Correspondence is a temporary post office in which participants are offered free postal services (including postage), letter-writing materials, and the prompt, “what has gone unsaid?” The post office reinterprets the mail slots of an everyday mailbox, offering services such as letters to self, letters to be destroyed (with professional shredding service offered), a read-aloud option, a professional pen-pal (artist Ashley Yang-Thompson), an express delivery service (letters to people in the room), and letters to self, to be mailed to you at a later date.

This project was made possible by the generous support of Platform Artist in Residence Program in Vaasa, Finland.

(2018) A performance in which participants are invited to enter into my subconscious realm and recreate a dream of mine. In this dream all of Humanity is told it is our last day of life on earth – the air has grown to dense with Carbon Dioxide and will no longer be able to support life. In the dream, my friends are helping me assemble a puzzle of the earth on my belly while we float on a raft out at sea. We are told that we will die, and we wait and wait to die, but we do not die. We continue to live.

During the performance, participants are invited to assemble the puzzle on my belly. 3/4 of the way through the puzzle, we learn that some of the pieces are missing, and that they must smash the busts surrounding us to free the remaining pieces. After smashing the busts and finding the pieces, participants are free to complete the puzzle.

This performance is based on a dream I had the night of the Ghost Ship fire, on December 2, 2016. 36 people were killed in that fire. This performance is dedicated to the victims of that fire and to their loved ones.

Full text of the performance:

1.) INTRODUCTION

[Lights Are On, projections are dimmed]

JAIMES: I would like to welcome you to this happening, called World Puzzle. This is a highly interactive happening. You will be asked to participate – though of course, you are welcome to stand back and simply observe if that feels more comfortable to you.

Some words on the content of this piece which might be sensitive for some. Firstly, this event will be filmed. If you do not wish to be on camera, please let the documentarian know.

Other things: You will be asked to be in close physical proximity to others, and there will be some destruction of objects.

You can choose to participate, then step back, then participate again, just please be mindful of those who are concentrating on the piece.

And lastly, this is an experiment. It has never been tried before.

I appreciate your engagement and support.

2.) WATER DREAM

JAIMES: I would like to invite everyone to close their eyes. We will sit in meditation for one minute, and then I will begin to tell you a story. Please keep your eyes closed until you hear the sound of ocean.

[SIT IN SILENCE FOR ONE MINUTE]

JAIMES: On December 2, 2016, I had a dream. The whole world has been told it’s the last day of life on earth. The last day. The parts per million of carbon in the air has reached it’s absolute maximum level. After this day, the air around us will no longer be able to support oxygen.

I am in a small european city which feels like a town. Things feel quaint. There are bakeries and shops...little quaint buildings.

And all of us citizens are in our own homes, waiting to die, doing what we can to say goodbye to this earthly life. I am in my home, waiting to die. I have the window shades drawn, and am watching the light from outside play on the walls as I consider death. I feel all the grief of letting go of life. But I also feel curiosity of what it will be like to emerge from my body and go to the afterlife.

I close my eyes and imagine what it will feel like for my body to escape into billions of tiny particles, or lose consciousness, or whatever happens when you die.

And then, I don’t die.

2a.) [OCEAN WAVES SOUND COMES ON]

[LIGHTS GO OUT]

When I open my eyes, I am lying on a raft in the middle of the ocean. The water stretches out as far as the eye can see.

My friends are kneeling over me, assembling a puzzle on my belly. They are smiling, and joyful. Off on the horizon, there is a tree growing out of the water, with a treehouse inside. It is our house.

But the air looks strange. On closer inspection, I see that there are tiny rainbows floating in the air. At first I don’t understand, but then I realize that they are the sunlight refracting in the carbon that should be too thick for us to breathe.

But we don’t die. They said today was the last day of life on earth, but we don’t die. There’s a promise, somehow, from the world at large, that we are all going to be okay, and we get a new chance at life.

3.) PUZZLE

JAIMES: I would like to invite you to open your eyes and join me in recreating my dream. I am going to lie down on this raft and invite you to come assemble this puzzle on my belly. You can come and go as you assemble it. As I’m laying down, I will offer instructions, so please listen for my voice.

Don’t be shy!

[JAIMES PUTS ON PUZZLE APRON]

[JAIMES GOES TO LIE DOWN ON THE RAFT]

4.) PEOPLE ASSEMBLE THE PUZZLE.

THEY RUN OUT OF PIECES

JAIMES: This might be a good time to tell you that not all of the puzzle pieces are here. There are 7 pieces inside the busts. You need to smash them in order to get the pieces out. You may smash them in the main area of the room. Safety goggles, hammers and flashlights are provided on the bench.

As you look for the missing pieces, I ask you to reflect on a piece of yourself that may have gotten lost over time. If you want, you can vocalize it by telling me what it is you want to call back to yourself.

5.) PEOPLE SMASH THE BUSTS

[The puzzle is put together]

JAIMES: Thank you. The end.

(2018) Magnetic apron containing a magnetic puzzle of the earth. Worn as part of the performance piece World Puzzle, in which participants are invited to assemble a puzzle of the earth on my belly.

(2018) Plaster, Toy Vending Capsules, Child-Sized Colonial Wigs

The Utopia School is a temporary free school and social center for sharing information about both failed and successful utopian projects while working towards new ones. We define Utopia as those spaces and initiatives which re-imagine the world in some crucial way.

Treehouses Of Resistance (2013), is an educational mural project depicting squatted land projects and forest occupations throughout the world.

Squatted land projects and forest occupations are encampments built by activists in order to prevent destructive land development and/or extraction.

Some of the squatted land projects and forest occupations depicted include the KXL Pipeline(USA) , Notre Dam Des Landes(France), Hambacher Forest (Germany), Bilston Glen (UK), McKay Tract (USA), and the Upper Florentine Protest Camp (Tazmania).

This installation culminated in a panel discussion with environmental activists on the ground in land occupations and a Q&A with the audience.

Treehouses Of Resistance was produced while a resident of the Treehouse Residency, a short lived residency program which took place in a small treehouse located within a Brooklyn Brownstone home.

Berlin Freespaces, otherwise known as Freiräume Map, Berlin, is an internet-based map depicting various forms of Freiräume (“free spaces,”) in Berlin today, including Hausprojekts (legalized squats), Wagenplätze (trailer communities), co-housing, social centers, tool-shares, hacker spaces and community gardens.

The map is an effort to centralize and expand on scattered pockets of information, including pre-existing databases as well as my own personal archive of Freiräume, which I have been accumulating since 2009.

The map allows the viewer to turn “on” and “off” certain kinds of spaces in order to locate accessible tools and resources, such as wood/metal-working spaces, free building materials, or donation-based health and legal counseling. The purpose of the map is to provide a tool for connection, historical analysis, and community organizing between autonomous, DIY spaces.

This project was made possible with the generous assistance of Eric Brelsford.

DIAMOND CUP STUDIOS, 2012

Diamond Cup Studios is a roving DIY film studio and film school, originating as part of Flux Factory’s Infamous Outpost installation at Spanien 19C gallery in Aarhus Denmark.

The film studio is an editing and learning space, complete with projector and screen for film history classes, editing suite for creating and teaching, as well as other amenities. During the two-month long Spanien 19C residency, Diamond Cup was the home-base for the 35 episode internet show, Public Broad Fluxing, which chronicles the scavenging and cultural adventures of Flux Factory as we navigate Denmark.

PUBLIC BROAD FLUXING, 2012

Public Broad Fluxing is a semi-daily television show covering the process and antics of the social practice artists collaborative, Flux Factory. The series follows Flux through a series of participatory art experiments in Aarhus, Denmark.

(2012) Bodega Chips

Bodega Chips in an interactive installation/film set in the form of a corner store. All of the items in the Bodega are made by myself and collaborators, using recycled materials– much of it dumpstered from neighbors recycling bins. Products in the store are intended to solve the problems of the New Age. Visitors to the Bodega are invited to take one dream dollar from the ATM and spend it on the item of their choice. Surveillance cameras linked to monitors are hidden throughout the store.

Bodega Chips is an interactive installation/film set in the form of a dystopic corner store. All of the items in the Bodega are made by myself and collaborators, and are intended to solve the problems of the New Age. Visitors to the Bodega are invited to take one dream dollar from the ATM and spend it on the item of their choice. Surveillance cameras linked to monitors are hidden throughout the store.

I created 5 Louis Vuitton bags made from cardboard, paint, packing tape and permanent marker as props for a video project. After the film shoot was over, I activated the pieces by selling them for zero dollars on canal street alongside the other counterfeit vendors. Passersby had to barter one personal item for one of the bags. The street vendors wound up coaching me in my efforts to “sell” the bags.

Here is the video for that performance. https://vimeo.com/35867004

Cardboard, Paint, Permanent Marker, Packing Tape and Collage.

Varied Dimensions.

Spooky Warms the Heart (2010) is an interactive film set/installation built for the pilot episode of an absurdist time travel soap opera.

The installation is comprised of a two-room film set featuring hand-printed fractal wallpaper, a working fountain chair, coke-can surveillance camera and live feed, painted nautilus rug, grocery store items and coupons from the future, Mercedes Benz hood ornament glasses, and a time machine secret passageway.

The Spooky Warms the Heart set was part of Flux Factory’s exhibition Housebroken, and built so that the secret passage was hidden from visitors. Once participants found their way inside, I invited them to make themselves at home; to sit in the fountain chair, clip coupons, and socialize. At the beginning of each visit to the set, I told participants that a secret passageway existed in the space, but they would have to discover it on their own. 

28 Cameras in 28 Days (Fun Is Sanity)

In summer of 2011, I found access to 28 free disposable cameras. I decided to shoot one camera per day, 24 photos per day, and see what came out of it.

What emerges is a highly personal, often banal, document of my life and New York City during the Summer of 2011, a time in which I was trying on the temporary philosophy, ‘Fun Is Sanity.’