Ezra Dickinson Dance, Art, & Performance

FREE THE YOUTH (2023)

(2023) cardboard sculpture, performance and film

Let me preface this by saying, youth incarceration is a mistake made by a society that has lost its ability to properly care for its youngest citizens. In my experience American incarceration aims at nothing more than to punish, no real path to rehabilitation is ever encouraged, only creating comradery between those who have similar convictions sharing how to be a better criminal upon release. I’m pretty skeptical generally of locking anyone in a box and keeping them there, its even more obvious that locking a child in a box is just another form of torture. A trauma that we as a country continue to live through the results of on a daily basis. I constructed these 88” tall, 24” wide, 10” deep cardboard letters. Made entirely from recycled cardboard, wood glue, and recycled paint. The Degenerate Art Ensemble gave me space to construct March of 2023. I then organized a small parade to transport the letters to a new space provided by Nii Modo where they could be painted. Over the next three months the letters received a paint job, and the final parade was organized and executed. Involving the community in the paradeing of these letters to their final resting location outside the youth detention center in Seattle was a very satisfying conclusion to this journey. The final stage of the parade was attended by a writer (Claude Souvenir) capturing the reactions of the public to our FREE THE YOUTH walk.

Notes on a Procession. By Claude Souvenir

Concept, build, and direction by Ezra Dickinson

Sound Composed by WIZDUMB

Edited by Doug Arney

This project made possible with support from Degenerate Art Ensemble, Punk Rock Flea Market/NII MODO, Benjamin, Anthony, Dani, Nahaan, Maia, Hannah, Jodi, Paul, Aubry, Kristen, VK, Mandy, Cash, Shawn, Kaleb, Mallory, Jeffery, Victoria, Daniel, and Alison.

Photo: Anthony Rigano

LAND BACK (2023)

(2023) Mural Indiginous resistance

The landscape of art in the northwest is complicated, and all that complication sits on the truth that this land is stolen. I am an adopted killer whale, with my Tlingit family we create to heal, we create together to teach each other, we sing and dance to heal our traditions, we connect with our ancestors through this practice. I am finding new life in learning through this, I am reckoning with my white self as I have been adopted and welcomed into indigenous culture. I am living a conflict, and it’s quite wild just as it should be.

Hanoon Bench (2022)

(2022) Hanoon Bench, Totem Lake WA

In the spring of 2022 I was commissioned by long time friends and supporters Wassef and Racha Haroun to create and install a design for a 50’x8’ restaurant bench back, at their new restaurant Hanoon in Totem Lake. The project called for me to source inspiration from an 18th century Syrian inlay on a dresser Wassef and Racha own. I started by sketching and getting into a design area that we all liked. Then digitally I started making drafts of the design working towards a product that would be sent off to be CNC routed into twelve and a half sheets of walnut veneer 1” plywood. While the design was being routed, the framing for the bench was built and installed. When the entire design had been completed, the routed plywood was installed at Hanoon. I then got to work painting the inlay design all 50’ feet of it. For the painting we chose to mimic the source inspiration of the Syrian dresser vine motif. Silver for the vine, and bone white with a translucent pearl overcoat for the blooms. This design and the completed product came out great. I’m quite pleased with the results, Wassef and Racha were speechless, the atmosphere that this piece added to the restaurant is palpable and commanding. If you would like to commission a design contact Ezra at: ezramdickinson@gmail.com

Stories (2020-present)

Stories from the Streets or Being Seen (working titles) (2020-present)

This is the seed project for what will become a much larger, interactive, citywide performance experience. To begin, I have been awarded funding from 4Culture to collect interviews from people living on the street experiencing homelessness. My aim is to find individuals who would like to talk with me about their experience living on the street. I have found myself gravitating to these folks for two reasons: 1) My mother lived on the street for a period of time after I began living on my own, and before she ultimately was committed to Western State hospital; and 2) I can’t help but see a clear correlation between out of control rental prices and the rapid increase in the homeless population in the northwest.

Through this funding I will compensate the individuals interviewed. I want to collect these interviews and geo tag the locations where the interviewees are living. In Seattle currently the people living on the street are routinely dislocated or swept from their established homes on the street, a practise that is both inhumane and, given that we are still in the grips of a worldwide pandemic, is all the more absurd an action to be taken against an already extremely vulnerable population.

Once I have collected as many interviews as funding will allow for, I will create a website which houses all of these stories and cross references each one with a QR code that will be placed at the location of past residence for each individual I interview. This will create both a visual link to the inhabitants that occupied these street homes–prior to being displaced yet again–and determine a walking tour through Seattle that someone could follow to see these stories activated from one QR code to the next.

This first step will lay the groundwork for the larger piece. I will endeavor to fill in the path that is created from these stories with installation, both site specific and gallery. There will be sound that will accompany the viewer through this journey. There will be pre recorded performance that lives as a sort of ghost along this path. All this will come together to create a walking tour that can be entered at any point, at any time.

Natural Movement (2018)

(2018) New Mystics public installation located in Seattle’s Pioneer Square’s Nord alley.

Eight individually designed disks replaced the worn and in some cases damaged disks that have weathered summer and winter in the northwest for the last four years. Disk reads “THE BALD MAN IS WATCHING YOU”. Adhesive vinyl and acrylic paint, dimension 25” circle.

YENOM WEN (2017)

(2017) Installation by The New Mystics collective, CoCA, Seattle WA.

For this commissioned work, the New Mystics sourced discarded clothing from the streets of Seattle, and mirrors from craigslist. We fabricated black mirror letters that mounted to the wall and created all needed hardware. We glass etched the mirrors, and created a reflected point of observance revealing our collective question to the city. YENOM WEN NEW MONEY, what will Seattle do with the influx of cash, will a more equitable culture be ushered in or will tech destroy the last grasps of anything cool or derelict, full of character and creativity. This show navigated the space between being complicit in the current homeless struggle and reflecting on one’s disconnection between detritus and desire. We ask the question, what role will philanthropy play in this new frontier?

Public Action (2017)

(2017) Commissioned public art sculpture, Velocity 2. Seattle WA

Speaking to the needs of our city and region. Expressing thoughts that have to be seen, heard and acted upon. A sense of permission emerges as one contributes clear messages into the public realm. We must do better to support the most vulnerable among us, we must recognize factually the displacement taking place in this area. We can not stand idly by as this effects all of us. Cardboard letters created with the help of artists Angel179 and NKO, approximate size 20′ by 20′.