UPCOMING
EXSANGUINATION​
SAT 15 NOV 2025 | 8PM
Hairpin Arts Center | 2810 N Milwaukee Ave | Free
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In a layered, immersive environment at the Hairpin Arts Center, five Chicago-based artists fracture and recombine the body, a ritual, and the giving of self. Within this performance art exhibition the body stands in for the displaced, the invisible, and the forgotten. It becomes a site for activism, penance, and reinvention.
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The event title derives from a particular work within the exhibition. Responding to the hyper-mediatized collision of images and the sensory overload of global despair, Roberto Sifuentes has toured the performance project #exsanguination in various forms since its premiere at Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery in 2017. This evening marks the conclusion of that project and celebrates its origins by bringing together Chicago-based artists for a one-night-only event.
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Exsanguination presents performance art that foregrounds our shared corporeality and vulnerability. Through gestures of giving, exposure, and the literal or metaphorical offering of blood, the artists reveal that beneath differences of identity, gender, politics, or social division, our bodies and spirits are deeply connected. Blood becomes a symbol of empathy, universality, and the fragile, unifying thread of humanity in a time marked by division, hatred, and dehumanization. In opening our veins to the audience and to each other, we acknowledge our shared flesh and recognize our shared compassion.
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