PROJECTS
TRIKE
TriKe is a visual representation of the chaos we shape in order to thrive within the fullness of ourselves. Our film uses absurdity to scandalize our explicit vulnerability in a public space.
TriKe is a celebration of our childlike sensibility to find the erotic in the mundane, and the power within our complexities. A short film by Giselle Bonilla and Brianna Mims; TriKe has just begun its festival circuit.
UNTITLED: AN ABOLITIONIST GAME
QUOTES FROM HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE MOROCCO PLAYTEST
“I want to thank you about this workshop, it helped me to know more about what I want my community to look like, how to work in a group, and to discover more people. It was really nice to meet you and hopefully we will see you again.”
Aya Oihbi
“I was delighted to be part of today’s workshop, it was really interesting and beneficial. I really enjoyed the discussion I had with my friends at class about different topics. It also provided me with a lot of new ideas and alternatives to what we can possibly do to build a better community. So I want to thank you for offering us this opportunity to brainstorm and look forward to change. I also would like to learn more about PIC abolition."
Diyae Alami
The game is rooted in principles of abolition and transformative justice. Players are encouraged to create a community without policing, prisons, racial capitalism, ableism, cisheteropatriarchy–ultimately, a world free from systems of oppression and control–involving not just destruction, but a collective rebuilding. This rebuilding has to begin in our interpersonal relationships on the smallest scale. This game offers a structure within which players can experiment with their ideas and learn how to collaborate, engage in generative conflict, advocate for their ideas, change course when necessary, and bring what they have learned to their own lives.
The game takes place in three parts. In the first part, players reflect on their values and dreams of the world they want to build, first as individuals and then as a collective, by answering a set of questions together. How do we want to use resources? How do we want to deal with someone who has caused harm? In the second part, they are assigned to a set of rules based on the social structures of either fungi, cetaceans, birds, or humans, and sent on a series of missions. Each mission will place players in situations where they must work through personal, interpersonal, and systemic conflict and collectively work backward to create the community they imagined. At the end of the game, there is a time for reflection – how did they engage productively with conflict? What worked or didn’t work about their ideal world? Who benefited and who was left out? And finally, how can they bring what they have learned into their lives?
BRIANNA MIMS BOOK PROJECT
This project explores and deconstructs the symbolism of suits apropos respectability politics, gender identities, capitalism, patriarchy, professionalism, and the relationship between politics and appearance. Old suits will be deconstructed and repurposed into new wearable art pieces that will be photographed. Text written by Brianna Mims will further unpack the symbolism of suits. The book launch in downtown Los Angeles, will feature video projections by Gillian Garcia and original choreography by Brianna Mims with dancers wearing the deconstructed suits.
#JAILBEDDROP
The #jailbeddrop experience consists of a performance and interactive installation rooted in challenging our inherent notion between “crime’ and punishment. The work contextualizes and facilitates a space to explore interpersonal accountability and reflect those values back on our “criminal justice system.” This work is an extension of the #jailbeddrop art series created by Patrisse Cullors and Cecilia Sweet-Coll through Justice LA.
Photography by: Ella Mikayelyan
LETTERS FROM THE ETUI
Animations by: Brittany Barrera, Jazmin Cabrera, Ma.Nadeschka Estocado, Nathaniel Trias, Sheila Lopez, Stephanie Salas, Vanessa Salas and Zoe Kim
Letters from the Etui is a digital platform featuring an animated video series, texts, and an accompanying series of workshops that support abolitionist frameworks, from personal to political practice. An etui–from the Old French estui, meaning prison–is a small ornamental case used for holding needles, cosmetics, and often other sacred possessions like personal letters. The project blends these meanings offering the etui as a metaphor for holding the sacredness and value of the people, ideas, creativity, and relationships impacted by imprisonment, and rejecting the sense of disposability that prisons support in our culture at large. Here, letters serve to connect students to each other across the walls of the prison system, they connect resistance struggles around the world, and they connect us as citizens and activists to a world oriented towards abolition.