LaJuné McMillian:
The Portal's Keeper
July 1-September 26, 2024
LaJuné McMillian: The Portal's Keeper is a new site-specific commission for the exterior video façade of the Mandeville Art Gallery. Building on the artist's interest in stewarding spaces for liberated Black realities and the Black imagination, McMillian will conduct a movement and meditation workshop with UC San Diego students using extended reality and physical computing to translate participants' movement data into visuals for this new artwork. In the artist's words, "The Portal's Keeper is a reminder that movement not only represents our individual experiences, but it also represents our collective memory, transcending space, time and oppressive social structures. It allows us to connect to each other, our ancestors, our deepest selves, and gives us space to communicate to our future. Movement is a technology, holding the stories of our existence globally."
[Image: LaJuné McMillian, The Portal's Keeper, 2024]
Co-sponsored by the Black Studies Project
Artist Biography
LaJuné McMillian is a new media artist, and Creative Technologist creating art that integrates performance, extended reality, and physical computing to question our current forms of communication. McMillian has shown and spoke about their work at Pioneer Works, National Sawdust, Leaders in Software and Art, Creative Tech Week, and Art && Code’s Weird Reality. The artist was previously the Director of Skating at Figure Skating in Harlem, where they integrated STEAM and Figure Skating to teach girls of color about movement and technology. They have continued their research on Blackness, Movement, and Technology during residencies at Eyebeam, Pioneer Works Barbarian Group, and Barnard College.