Statement
Employing visual and gestural reiteration, Longva+Carpenter examine the struggle and strength of difference. We share personal commonalities, broad and general, in terms of gender, race, age and education, but our individual backgrounds, cultures and bodies provide significant grist in generating, as well as performing, our durational projects.
We also share a keen interest in material study and sculptural space—grounding our process in a tradition of visual art—to create heightened sites for specific and directed actions. In performance, singular focus over a length of many hours allows us to charge the space with both an intimacy and intensity of presence.
Yet, our research and development process is usually conducted remotely. We discuss and deconstruct aspects from our daily lives: memories, fears, desires, dreams, and our shifting identities across our two cultures. In this way, we are able to explore the relationship to self via the other. Can I understand how you feel? Can two ever really connect?