"Chances Dances Takes Over the Museum of Contemporary Art" Photos by Ratko Radojcic for Chicago Magazine
Chances Dances: Summoning a New Queer Reality MCA First Fridays Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Dec 6, 2013
The Jerry Blossom Brigade at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for Chances Dances: Summoning a New Queer Reality MCA First Fridays, Dec 6, 2013
Photography by Jackie Elizabeth Rivas
The Jerry Blossom Brigade: Kiam Marcelo Junio/Jerry Blossom, Rashayla Marie Brown (squad leader), Alex Paul Young, Dove Drury-Hornbuckle, Darren Barrere, Kevin Sparrow, Cathy Kim, Chad Chaney, Adriana Magnolia, Annie Driscoll, Brett Layne, Nicole Renee, Marie Socha, Corrine Mina
My interview with Nico Lang for the Windy City Times is live online! It sums up quite succinctly a lot of what has brought me to where I am today, and what influences the work I make. "Jerry Blossom Brigade," the piece I'll be performing (alongside some amazing artists and queer community members) this Friday for December First Fridays: Summoning a New Queer Reality is a manifestation of my history, politics, and personal experience as a genderqueer, Filipino, US Navy veteran, visual and performance artist.
Although Junio explained that they already felt like they'd been performing for different people, it was the character of Jerry Blossom that allowed Junio's interest in the medium to flourish. "It began just as a name," Junio explained, but Jerry started to grow into a manifestation of my suppressed behaviors, cultural signifiers slapped up against white privilege and color. This performance had the potential to become a vehicle to discuss these kinds of issues." For Junio, Jerry Blossom is an act of resistance. "I think a lot about the invisibility of Filipino bodies in space, performance and art," Junio said. "Filipinos are the second most populous Asian population, but we're nowhere to be seen on TV. Our experience is not represented."
Respect.
My type of husband
racismschool
Take note: Speaking out against wrong doings is literally just…being a person.
Reblog forever.
iamkiam reblogged
Who’s that girl that you dream of? #jerryblossom #fulldrag #gender #performance
Check out this interview I did with Nia King, a Bay Area artist/activist.
"Veteran. Fashion Designer. Yoga Instructor. This interview investigates the many lives of Kiam Marcelo Junio, world-traveler and former resident of the Philippines, Japan, and Spain. I sat down with him in Chicago to find out how he explores themes of colonialism, assimilation, and nostalgia through performance, queer "drag", and fashion. Highlights include: - how his experience in the US Navy informs his critique of US imperialism, - why being Filipino on stage is a political act, and - when to intentionally shut out your audience. Stay tuned until the end to hear Kiam's attempts to explain the role of jockstraps in gay male sexual culture to me (to no avail)."
A transcript is also available in the link if you don't feel like playing the audio file :)
Performed a new poem, “Ode to Selfies” tonight at salonathon Presents: GUILTY PLEASURES (at Beauty Bar)
Ode to Selfies
Why do I take selfies?
Because my face is phenomenal.
A Filipino proverb says, the bigger the forehead, the bigger the brain. I must be Einstein then. Or better yet, Jose Rizal, who learned from the Spanish conquerors, and used their tools to dismantle an Empire. They call him the father of the Philippines.
Why do I take selfies?
Because my eyes are pools of mud, made of earth and rain, rivers that nourish, and monsoons that destroy. My eyes are dirt and tears and blood spilled over centuries of warfare.
And my lips? My lips are ripe red fruits you can’t buy at Jewel Osco. Organic, locally grown, fair trade, all that good shit.
Why do I take selfies?
Because I was raised to think that beauty is something unattainable.
Because there was never anyone who looked like me on TV, or magazines, or in movies.
Because when I was 16, my mom told me that Filipinos don’t belong in the spotlight, only backstage. I don’t blame her though. It’s the America she landed on, and the America that still largely exists today.
But I’ve stopped believing in TV, magazines and Hollywood movies. There’s nothing there for me to learn about life, or love, or truth, or the beauty that I seek.
Except for Tyra Banks. As problematic and cuckoo bananas as she is, she did teach me how to smile with my eyes, find my strong angles, and to always catch the light.
I’ve been catching and making my own light since.
Why do I take selfies?
Because I’m still Facebook friends with people I knew while serving in the military and I just looooove to queer their little world.
Why do I take selfies?
Because I’m learning to love myself, while unlearning the social cues I’ve been given all my life.
The cautionary tale of Narcissus warns against falling in love with your own reflection. Well, what can I say? He was white.
I, meanwhile, am going to continue instagramming the hell out of my phenomenal fucking face.
#gpoy #selfies #vanityasselfcare #beauty #imnotamodelijustlovemyself
Camouflage as a Metaphor for Passing: Mimesis II (Camouflage Mirrors) at the Gene Siskel Film Center #art #work #werq #queer #camouflage #kiammarcelojunio #military #mirrors (at Gene Siskel Film Center)
At Queergasm: “Sewing Station.”
During the performance, I sit in a reduced version of an old US Navy uniform and cut and sew garments using my birth certificate (from the Philippines) printed on fabric. I do not speak.
Here's a short story:
Between the ages of 1-5, my biological mother worked as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, and I rarely saw her. The person who took care of me most- bathed me, fed me, clothed me, took me to school - was our landlady, who worked as a seamstress. This is a tribute to her, a person whose name I no longer remember.
On a related note this piece is about the exportation of human capital from the Philippines into other countries, usually in silent subservient jobs as custodians, nannies, nurses, tech, factory, or sex workers. It is about the work and labor produced by Filipino bodies for the benefit of other nations, and relatedly, capitalism. The Philippine government promotes this market highly, treating it as a source of national pride, to show the world the strong Filipino work ethic.
This piece is also about the quiet labor produced by military service members, serving the country at the expense of silencing our own individual identities.
And it is also about a paper document as a "proof" of one's existence, even though it only lists the most impersonal information.
It is about choosing one's own name, and forging one's own identity.
TONIGHT!!! QUEERGASM, at Northwestern University.
Performances by Rebecca Kling, Kiam Marcelo Junio/Jerry Blossom, Keijaun Thomas, Dirty Grits, Amanda Stefanski, and Ejaz Ali & Oeshik Chowdhury.
I'll be performing my durational piece, "Sewing Station" during the social hour, and "AmeriKararoke" to open the show.
Don't miss this if you're in Chicago or Evanston!
New project: AmeriKaraoke #art #conceptual #workinprogress #american #assimilation #immigration #modelminority #atyourservice #military #history
New photo series: AmeriKaraoke #art #workinprogress #modelminority #atyourservice #conceptual #photography #text #karaoke #american #assimilation #immigration #military
Tomorrow night at Roxaboxen, Jerry Blossom will sing classic American songs on #karaoke for Anatomy/Gift/Association presents: Cabaret Cabaret One Year Anniversary. Don't miss it! #art #performance #chicago #politics #immigration #diaspora #America #colonialism #capitalism #military #USA ##workinprogress #queer #failure
Preview from yesterday’s photo shoot with my performance group, Anatomy/Gift/Association. Photo by Jacqueline Friedberg
Lee Yongbaek, Angel Soldier, and other works. 2011
DAMN IT! He's doing what I'm trying to do with my Camouflage pieces, but bigger and already established.
Back to recontextualizing my work.
Grrrrrrr.
DNA Info Chicago writer Chloe Riley recently sat down with me at the Greenhouse to talk about my life in the Navy as a gay man during Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the development of my art and persona, Jerry Blossom. Check it out!
iamkiam reblogged
198/365
December 22, 2010
Today, more than any other day, I am proud to be serving in the US Armed Forces. Rota, Spain Camera: Polaroid SX-70 Film: Polaroid SX-70 Time Zero (3/10 from my next-to-last box of last stock TZ film)
TONIGHT! I will be reading journal excerpts from my first year in the US Navy as a gay man during Don't Ask Don't Tell - Including a play by play of how I lost my V-card with a fellow sailor. Come enjoy the show!
Making Out with Wes Perry and Friends Wednesday February 20th at 8pm The Upstairs Gallery in Andersonville 5219 N Clark St FREE and BYOB! ($5 suggested donation)
iamkiam reblogged
This is considered the largest wooden structure in the world, last time I checked. It's in Sevilla, about 30 mins from Rota, a small village where I was stationed with the US Navy in Spain for 3.5 years.
I went to my storage unit today and pulled out a bunch of Polaroids which I'm installing and selling for 2nd Friday at the Greenhouse. A lot of the photos are from my time in Europe, and I got nostalgic for that period in my life.
There was an innocence about that time. I was blessed with youth and a paycheck twice a month. I traveled anywhere in Europe as I pleased. If I wanted to go to London for the weekend, I could. I visited Paris and Barcelona at least 4 times each. The friends I kept around me were wonderful and supportive, for the most part, and also loved to travel.
Nevertheless, there was a prying dissatisfaction, knowing I wasn't supposed to be there in the military, that every fiber of my being was telling me I needed to be making art and being around more like-minded people. It felt suffocating. The first quarter of 2011 was a long waiting game for my separation on May of that year.
During my last year in the military (and consequently, my last year in Spain), I took on a project in which I photographed my life with Polaroid cameras. I called it Placer Instantáneo (Instant Pleasure). Each day I designated a Polaroid photo for that day. Today, I went through some of those photos, looking at a life I lived so long ago. It feels like a lifetime has passed. I'm not that person anymore. I still have similar hopes, dreams, but I'm much more affirmed of my place in life. Though times are harder now (I rarely travel, as I'm just barely getting by with rent and food and art supplies), I'm much more confident in my skin, I feel much better supported and loved by family, friends and lovers, and so much happier in every sense.