On May 6, Barak adé Soleil premieres a new work, SHIFT, that amplifies the presence of Black neurodiverse and disabled bodies by occupying the museum’s spaces both digitally and physically.

SHIFT is a new commission comprised of a video installation in one of the MCA’s public stairwells, accompanied by a live event. In the dreamlike video installation that runs from May 6 through July 9, the presence of Black neurodiverse and disabled bodies infiltrates a spiral stairwell within the museum, where they are shown from many angles and at multiple scales, both at rest and as they shift. adé Soleil’s installation offers rest, and the everyday gestures of these bodies, as forms of political resistance for Black people—challenging the media’s often violent interpretation of these bodies as lazy or near death. In the live event on May 6, a promenade of disability community members traverse inaccessible staircases, recalibrating the flow of activity within the museum and challenging simplistic depictions of Black disabled bodies in real time. The promenade is durational and moves through different areas of the museum, including the MCA Plaza and front steps, the northwest spiral staircase, and both public lobbies.

Frictions is organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator in Performance, with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Associate in Performance.

About the Artist

Barak adé Soleil (he, they) has been part of the contemporary art scene since 1991. A progressive artist whose work speaks to the expanse of blackness as it intersects with disability, neurodiversity, and queerness, adé Soleil moves fluidly between creating, curating and supporting performance and visual art. Adé Soleil is the founder of D UNDERBELLY, an interdisciplinary network of artists of color, and recipient of the prestigious Katherine Dunham Choreography Award given by New York’s AUDELCO for Excellence in Black Theatre. Other acknowledgements for creative work include a 3Arts Foundation Award (2016); a 3Arts Robert Rauschenberg Residency Fellowship (2017); and Art Matters Foundation Award (2017 and 2020). Presentations include from here to there for the 2018 exhibition Chicago Disability Activism, Arts, and Design: 1970s to Today at Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois Chicago and a series of movements for both the 2018 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, Toronto, and VAE Raleigh’s Everyday series at Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, North Carolina. At 205 Hudson Street Gallery, New York, the work markings premiered as part of the 2019 group exhibition Refiguring The Future. Internationally, adé Soleil has served as inaugural faculty for the 2021 Wildseed Centre for Arts & Activism Fellowship in Toronto, developed creative communal work at Montréal Arts Interculturels, cocurated The TALK for the Prismatic Arts Festival in Ottawa, and presented at the UK symposium New Possibilities for Performance in Birmingham, UK. Currently, adé Soleil is the inaugural Embodied Thinker-in-Residence for Candoco Dance Company in London, and mentors for the PEERS exchange program through Zurich University of the Arts.