Magma & Pearls Closing Performance

Come Hell or High Femmes is an immersive, roving performance by artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas that charts the post-apocalyptic geography of her exhibition Magma & Pearls. Thomas imagines a lush and verdant world inhabited by surviving “dolls”—trans femmes so flawless they are no longer considered real. Through forms of camouflage and metamorphosis, Thomas reclaims what it means to be Black and queer in nature, forging new ways to exist in relation to the American landscape.

About the Exhibition

Magma & Pearls: Oceans Rise and Fall Like Meteorites is the first solo museum exhibition by artist and performer Keioui Keijaun Thomas presenting a large-scale sculptural installation, video, performance, and community-generated programming. The exhibition builds on over a decade of the artist’s work exploring the affective and material conditions of Black and trans identity and expands on her ongoing practice of world-building to create spaces of safety, joy, and healing. The artist transforms MOCA’s Great Hall into a post-apocalyptic geography to imagine new ways to relate to the American landscape centering interdependent systems of care for all living beings.

 

Image Credit: Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Come Hell or High Femmes. Performance at MOCA Tucson, 2023. Photo by Eryka Dellenbach. Image courtesy of the artist.