Performative outrage
Artist Angela Davis Fegan was sporting what she called "the protester look." Those red coveralls, she says, "make me feel like a technician or a laborer, which are both things related to my body of work." Fegan was coming from Open Engagement, the itinerant annual conference focused on the practice of socially engaged art that this year was mostly held at UIC. Fegan, in collaboration with artist Megan Young, made the WE HOLD SPACE FOR poster as part of a performance piece called The Longest Walk. Participants filled the sign with their own pet causes before setting off on a staged demonstration. Fegan herself put down "QUEER VOICE" because "including as many voices as possible is important, but queer is an identity that applies to me and most of my other work," she says. "Queer people often manipulate and enhance outward signifiers for survival and to silently communicate among each other. So I am hyperaware of what I am doing with clothing choices at all times."
Originally published in the Chicago Reader.
