Asia Stewart

FAH

Enlarged Polaroid print

"I am interested in facilitating moments of sensation, connection, and communication through the visceral and vicarious elements of performance and their afterlives as photographs, videos, sculptures, and installations: all traces of my physical self….During a one-on-one performance, audiences could photograph my body using a Polaroid camera. Audiences could only issue verbal commands before taking their photographs; touch wasn't permitted. The resulting images were scanned and digitally enlarged. This work is titled after the initials of an anonymous participant: FAH."

— Asia Stewart

About the artist

Asia Stewart

American

Asia Stewart is a Brooklyn-based performance artist whose conceptual work centers the body as a living archive. After receiving degrees in the social sciences from Cambridge and Harvard University, she has sought ways to transform the language specific to studies of race, gender, sexuality, and diaspora into materials that can be felt and worn on the body. As a National YoungArts Winner in Musical Theatre and a former National Arts Policy Roundtable Fellow with Americans for the Arts, Stewart uses her past experiences on stage to inject her work with a heightened sense of theatricality. Stewart has received various honors and support for her works in performance from organizations that include The Shed, Franklin Furnace, A.I.R. Gallery, Marc Straus Gallery, Marble House Project, GALLIM, the Watermill Center, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. Stewart routinely questions how she can best document her performances and represent movement and physicality across mediums. Her works in video and installation have been exhibited at venues across the United States, including the Mercury Store, Untitled Space, NARS Foundation, Goodyear Arts, A.I.R. Gallery, Kellen Gallery, and Anthology Film Archives. Her first series of prints is also now held in the permanent collection of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.