Performances by: McKelway / Morataya, Juliettes, Novia
What happens when narrative is forced into bodies not designed to contain them? “Stolen and Contaminated Songs” reimagines the evocatively defunct Southwest Museum in Los Angeles as both reliquary to + portal of narrative overreach—where meaning is driven inward and left to fester.
Through scent, (urethral) sound(ing), drawing, and video, the show explores how institutions stage preservation while enacting contamination, perpetuating swindles not just on the public but on their own logics of authority. The archive-body becomes a compromised vessel, strained by fictive histories, fetishized artifacts, and the confounding affects left behind in the wake of collision.
Jasminne Morataya (b. 1998, Monterey Park, CA) is a writer, artist, and high school English teacher based in Los Angeles. She received an MA in Education from UC Berkeley in 2025 and a BFA in Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design in 2020. She works with text, drawing, ceramics, and sound as tools for realizing elliptical narrative strategies. Group / solo exhibitions + readings include Gattopardo, The Fulcrum Press, Bass + Reiner (SF), Ehrlich Steinberg, Melrose Botanical Garden, The Feminist Center for Creative Work, Mountain View Mausoleum, and Foster’s Freeze.