The Body Politic: Women Artists After Frida
A conversation with musician Kalyn Heffernan, dancer/choreographer Elle Hong, artist Danielle See Walker and author Suzi Q. Smith. Moderated by Justin Veach, Longmont Museum.
Taking inspiration from Frida Kahlo, a diverse panel of Colorado women artists explore what it means to make art while inhabiting bodies that are often politicized, scrutinized, celebrated, or misunderstood. Together, they will reflect on the complex relationship between identity, embodiment, and artistic practice.
Kalyn Rose Heffernan has built a career out of refusing the terms by which disabled people, queer people, and working-class communities are often represented. A rapper, performer, educator, community advocate, and founding member of the experimental group Wheelchair Sports Camp, Heffernan’s work moves across music, theater, film, television, museum interventions, creative direction, performance art, permanent installations, politics, and public protest. Her practice is confrontational, humorous, loving, and deliberately difficult to categorize. Heffernan has performed internationally and locally, bringing a voice rooted in disability justice, queer liberation, and community accountability into spaces that have not always known how to hold it. Her work insists that accessibility is not simply a technical accommodation but a cultural and political question: who is allowed to belong, who gets to lead, and who gets heard without being translated for comfort.
Elle Hong (she/her) is an antidisciplinary artist currently based in Cheyenne/Ute/Arapaho territories (Denver, CO). She holds an MFA in Dance and a Graduate Certificate in Emergent Technologies & Media Arts Practice from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BA in Dance & Sociology from Wesleyan University. Currently, she provides dramaturgical support for artists Helanius J. Wilkins and LA Samuelson and has toured as a performer for Michelle Ellsworth. Elle’s work spans across dance, media arts, text, sound, and pedagogy, often employing queer/diasporic collaging techniques for creating performances that reenvision history and form. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally, including the Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival, SPEKTRUM Berlin, Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), ODC Theater (San Francisco, CA), BMoCA (Boulder, CO), among others. Elle’s creative research works to uncover the embedded politics and power structures inherent to viewing and being viewed. She is invested in exposing the complex dialectic between interiority and exteriority, paving way towards new methods of being that actively resist and transcend categorization.
Danielle SeeWalker is Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta and citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. She is a fine artist, muralist, writer, activist, and boymom of two, based in Denver, Colorado. Her visual artwork often incorporates the use of mixed media and experimentation while incorporating traditional Native American materials, scenes, and messaging. Her artwork pays homage to her identity as a Lakȟóta wíŋyaŋ (woman) and her passion to redirect the narrative to an accurate and insightful representation of contemporary Native America while still acknowledging historical events. Alongside her passion for creating visual art, Danielle is a freelance writer and published her first book in 2020 titled, “Still Here: A Past to Present Insight of Native American People & Culture.” She is also very dedicated to staying connected and involved in her Native community and has served as a mayoral appointed City Commissioner for the Denver American Indian Commission since 2019. Danielle has also been working on a personal, passion project since 2013 with her long-time friend called The Red Road Project. The focus of the work is to document, through words and photographs, what it means to be Native American in the 21st century by capturing inspiring and positive stories of people and communities within Indian Country.
Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning author, artist, educator, and organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. While primarily known for her poetry, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and interdisciplinary creative. She has created, curated, coached, and taught for over 20 years, touring throughout the United States.
This program is part of our Thursday Nights @ the Museum series. Join us every Thursday from Sept. 3 until Dec. 10 for concerts, films, and free talks in the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium.
