Phoenix Lindsey-Hall. Never Stop Dancing

About

Extending from Lindsey-Hall’s ongoing practice examining violence in queer communities through the medium of cast porcelain objects (often ones people have used in hate crimes) the 49 porcelain disco balls that make up Never Stop Dancing will each be illuminated with light and suspended at various heights from the ceiling of the darkened gallery, casting shadows and invoking reflection.

The disco ball is a firmly-rooted signifier of nightclubs and, by extension, celebration. By matting the ball’s traditionally mirrored panels, its reflective quality becomes muted, turning the viewer’s gaze inwards. More heavenly body than corporeal presence, more lamentation than party the clay acts as a surrogate for the body in the way it can be at once fragile and strong. The immediately noticeable lack of music in the space—an otherwise expected presence, again anticipated by the disco ball signifier—manifests a sober, atmospheric commentary on loss—where both the disco balls and the lives they represent once gave light, now they are extinguished.

An erstwhile queer rights lobbyist in Kentucky, Lindsey-Hall’s practice refocuses her advocacy. Never Stop Dancing focuses the conversations concerning queer personhood in the aftermath of the shooting into a deeply humanistic manifestation that recalls the sculptural work of Robert Gober and Kara Walker. Never Stop Dancing looks at how queer nightclubs and bars existed as places of safe harbor while attracting danger just outside. In a post-Pulse reality, Lindsey-Hall asks viewers how we move forward after a harbor has been compromised.