Feminist performance artist Christen Clifford talks about everything under the sun, including:
Living her entire adult life in New York City, going from the NYU dorms to Williamsburg, to Jackson Heights, Queens, where she now lives with her family, passing up the recommendations she rec'd to get on the lists of artist housing when she was 18; coming to New York planning to break into acting and be on Broadway and eventually a movie star, and how that life course she was anticipating gradually changed; the artists she's been influenced by, including Lynda Benglis and Marina Abramovic, the latter of whom has disappointed her with her works over the last few years, to the point of them tarnishing her legacy; her performance pieces for Ana Mendieta, one outside Dia in Chelsea, the other inside Dia Beacon, both Carl Andre retrospectives (Mendieta was his wife)—how she arrived at them, how they came off (offal was involved), and her passion behind their force, which were so intensely aimed at Medieta's memory and legacy; rape culture, a class she teaches at the New School, and her own experience with rape; her performance "Menstural Symphony," and her activism in getting free tampons in NYC schools; and about her recent bout with cancer, which she feels confident she's gotten through the worst of, and has been doing a social media project during the process.