tubes
clay practice
psychic highway
how to see in the dark #1
how to see in the dark #2
loop
kelp textiles and objects
exoskeleton
spinal fountain
jugs
mothball performances
rock coat
tile making (2025)
mosquito point
IMACHILD (2025)
blue (2023)
i am my own shoes (2022)
sound blanket (2020)
body film #1. (2020)
JULY 16 (2017)
COVER SHOW (2017)
HALLOWEEN (2017)
SEPTEMBER 10th (2017)
PRACTICE (2017)
SEAWRACK
In this body of work somatically activated sculptures and rituals are catalysts of transformation into gooey demonic algae divas, digest the petro-plastics infused in ideological structures and cavort with the shitty parts.
performance (solo)
2025, Collaborators Side by Side, The Naked Stark, Philadelphia PA
Dispatches residency/performance
August 2026
Imagine humana as micro algae, agar potions poured over asphalt, weird faces, earrings attached to RC cars, or your mom in the 90’s singing Ditto’s “White Flag” in the car with her hand out the window holding a cigarette dreaming of another life.
Performers and collaborators: Chloe Marie, Micah Lat, Zeze Schosrch, and Sheila Zagar
Textiles
Objects
ceramic tube, agar, kelp chips
2025
2025
TUBES 2025
AiR, Soil Factory, Ithaca NY 2025
Score: Make clay into the longest tube. Play telephone.
First we reclaim the dry clay from previous clay practices, kneading it out using our hands, body, and feet. Then, one after another, brick-like clay blobs are squeezed through a clay extruder, excreting out a hollow tube. Huddling around the extruder, clay blobs in hand, we attempt to make a long of a clay tube, resulting in many short, scrunched, looped, and flumped tubes. We balance the fragile clay tubes with our body and settle them into a position to dry on whatever structures are available. Holding each finger print and tear from the moment of their birth, they dry in the sun then are fired.
After firing, the tubes are archival castings of our site-specific dance and acoustic tools (instruments) to listen and connect with the environments inside and outside the body. Further research is done by connecting the fired tubes with our hands/body to tell messages through, screaming loving declarations into both ends of one tube, or taking a procession around the block to sound and listen through the tubes.
“On Tuesday (tubesday) a beautiful sunny evening AiR Shannon Brooks shared Dirt Disco. The clay tubes formed earlier in the week were arranged outside, like worms in the grass or insides on the outside. We were invited to explore - listening to them like seashells, secrets to each other, investigating the character of each. Tubes were cradles, blown into, warmed by our hands and mouth, our breath and laughter weaving together as the sun dipped low. Harmonizing, syncopation, clarinet, microphone reverb, coyote yips, wolf howls - a fleeting, joyful balm, where play became communion, and the earth itself seemed to hum along. The experience, and the gift of Shannon’s residency in general, is a present and radiant antidote to the uncertainty of our times - open minded exploration, a bumping DJ set, and the power of some good deep breathing”
-Ash Ferlito testimonial, SOIL FACTORY, 2025
-Ash Ferlito testimonial, SOIL FACTORY, 2025
CLAY PRACTICE 2023- present
I move and sound with raw clay to discover memories, potential futures, and imaginary dimensions fossilized in our bodies and in the clay-earth. As a group performance, audiences are invited to play with the clay as performers improvise and transmogrify each other into earth-creatures, then let those structures crumble and evolve.
clay practice extends into a set of ceramic living objects meant to be touched and worn, including vessels, a spine-fountain, and ceramic exoskeleton. When touched or worn, these objects shape movement from their weight, form, and sound.
These sculptures were exhibited in a durational, evolving installation where performers worked with raw clay and ceramic objects while self-audio describing their experiences. Visitors witnessed, wandered, touched the objects, and even napped.
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clay practice performance
Fleisher Memorial, Philadelphia 2025Taking the form of an immersive memory-landscape installation including exoskeleton, spine-fountain, and other ceramic works created in clay practice workshops, this exhibition had three parts. First, a hands-on clay practice workshop was facilitated by Shannnon Brooks exploring movement, sound, and raw clay. Then there was an open exhibition space for visitors to explore, rest, and dream in the installation. Finally, there was a two-hour improvised movement and sound performance with the ceramic objects and clay. This clay practice was intended as a ritual engagement with our senses and to decentralize sight as our primary means of experience. By reaching into touch, sound, and memory we blur the lines between and expand our sensorial cosmos and cavort with our uncertain futures.
music and sound: George Shands and Josh Meakim
performance: Shannon Brooks, Kimya Jackson, Cedar Becher
audio description and access: Julia Havard
clay practice performance
Philadelphia PA 2024clay practice performance
Rotunda, Philadelphia 2024In this improvised performance we began with a pile of clay and slowly expand it into shapes and become creatures from our unconscious. We begin with a pile of clay, and slowly expands into architectures and creatures from our unconscious. When we move slowly, clay bits fall and thud to the floor, and we allow structures to crumble.
Ceramic Exoskeleton
Philadelphia, 2024seven-piece handbuilt terracotta garment,
Philadelphia, 2024
seven-piece handbuilt terracotta garment,
Philadelphia, 2024
spinal fountain
Philadelphia, 2024spinal fountain detail
Philadelphia, 2024jug 1
Philadelphia, 2024jug 2
Philadelphia, 2024pouring water from jug to jug
Philadelphia, PA, 2024A video of the jugs pouring water. They are impractical at pouring water. “jug 2" leaks, and I like how quickly the water disappears.
double jug
Philadelphia, PA, 2024video of improvisation with jug 1 and jug 2 layered on top of each other.