Gallery 3 - Impacting performances
Highlighting inequality and climate change with interactive dresses
This gallery presents Dominique Paul's evolving performance practice, driven by the urge to reveal inequalities and environmental issues through impacting visual representations of data on wearable sculptures and interactive works. Over the course of a decade (2012-2023), this practice expands progressively from solo performance videos to a live group performance at an extraordinary diplomatic meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, 2023.
Two books have been published about these performances: one about the Animal Population Decline performance and a second covering the performance at the Organization of the American States council session.
Performativity is the mode of the quest, of mapping out the real, and of addressing it however possible. It is movement which engages movement. It moves as the world moves.
-All About Red, Chantal Pontbriand, 2025See full Migration of the Arthropods video here
Gallery 3 - Entrance wall
From the left: Migrations of the Arthropods - Coney Island, 2012
Migrations of the Arthropods video (View here)
To the left of the entrance door is a nook projecting a compilation of the artist's performance videos from 2015-2023, including the recording of the live group performance during the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, 2023 (View here) and a "making of" gallery of the artists collaborative project with a local high school art class, Animal Population Decline, 2022 (View video of project here).
Gallery 3 - wall opposite to entrance
Animal Population decline Dress Migration of the Arthropods - Dumbo, 2012 Air Quality Walk with Xul and Ora, Asthma Alley - South Bronx, 2017 Migration of the Arthropods - Coney Island, 2012
Gallery 3 - Overview
From left to right: Median Household Income Dress at the Barclays Center, 2015 Animal Population Decline - South Bronx, 2015 Animal Population Decline dress on display
Gallery 3 - Educational activity
Signer Juno brown is wearing the Animal Population Decline dress for an educational activity.
Gallery 3 - overview
From the left: Animal Population Decline dress on display Migrations of the Arthropods - Dumbo, 2012 Air Quality Walk with Xul and Ora, Asthma Alley - South Bronx, 2017 Median Household Income Dress at the Irish Hunger Memorial - New York, 2015
Median Household Income Dress at the Barclays Center, 2015
Median Household Income Dress, 2015, displays US census median household revenue data of the area where I am walking, the Irish Hunger Memorial in Manhattan's financial district, a very high revenue zone.
View Interactive Median Income Dress: Acting as a Social Interface performance video here
Median Household Income Dress at the Irish Hunger Memorial, 2015
This dress is intriguing for the public and encourages interaction.
View Interactive Median Income Dress: Acting as a Social Interface performance video here
Data source : Median Household Income Dress at the Irish Hunger Memorial, 2015
The Median Revenue dress displays US census data of revenue per household where the artist is walking in New York, lighting level to scale with revenue level and color code based on the WNYC.org map (above).
View Interactive Median Income Dress: Acting as a Social Interface performance video here
Animal population decline - South bronx, 2015
Photo of the artist performing.
Air Quality Walk with Xul and Ora, Asthma Alley - South Bronx, 2017
View This Dress Measures Air Quality video here
Videos: Impacting performance practice retrospective
2023 back to 2012
Below: Red | Rojo | Rouge | Vermelho, 2023 see full video with sound here
These videos were presented at the 2023 Silent Fall Exhibition at the Museum of the Americas. Click here to view Dominique Paul's most recent performance videos.
Washington, D.C, 2023
Red | Rojo | Rouge | Vermelho, 2023 - Washington, DC
Video of a performance, 13 min 23 sec, English with some lyrics in Spanish, French and Portuguese, English subtitles
Video of the first performance ever presented during a session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. It was presented to the ambassadors of the countries of the Americas on the International Women’s Day Special Session: Gender Equality in Climate Action in the Americas. The performance addresses the intersectionality between ever-increasing income disparity, violence against indigenous, first nations women and all women, and plummeting wildlife populations brought by the relentless encroachment on natural habitats caused by deforestation and industrial agriculture which are a major contributing factor to climate change.
Performers: Selena Benally is wearing Too-Big-to-Fail ,Juno Brown is wearing Animal Population Decline, Erin Frisby is wearing Increasing Revenue Gap, Carly Harvey is wearing Overfishing, Elena Lacayo is wearing Haves-and-the-Have-Nots ing...
Video of the first performance ever presented during a session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. It was presented to the ambassadors of the countries of the Americas on the International Women’s Day Special Session: Gender Equality in Climate Action in the Americas. The performance addresses the intersectionality between ever-increasing income disparity, violence against indigenous, first nations women and all women, and plummeting wildlife populations brought by the relentless encroachment on natural habitats caused by deforestation and industrial agriculture which are a major contributing factor to climate change.
Performers: Selena Benally is wearing Too-Big-to-Fail ,Juno Brown is wearing Animal Population Decline, Erin Frisby is wearing Increasing Revenue Gap, Carly Harvey is wearing Overfishing, Elena Lacayo is wearing Haves-and-the-Have-Nots ing...
It was presented to the ambassadors of the countries of the Americas on the International Women’s Day Special Session: Gender Equality in Climate Action in the Americas. The performance addresses the intersectionality between ever-increasing income disparity, violence against indigenous, first nations women and all women, and plummeting wildlife populations brought by the relentless encroachment on natural habitats caused by deforestation and industrial agriculture which are a major contributing factor to climate change.
Performers:
Selena Benally is wearing Too-Big-to-Fail
Juno Brown is wearing Animal Population Decline
Erin Frisby is wearing Increasing Revenue Gap
Carly Harvey is wearing Overfishing
Elena Lacayo is wearing Haves-and-the-Have-Nots
Longueuil, Quebec, 2022
Animal Population Decline : Performance Art video, 2022 - Longueuil, Qc, Canada
2022, 9 m 14 s, HD video, French with English subtitles
To communicate the causes of the declining populations of birds, insects, mammals and others, the students speak out about the issues which are precipitating a drop in animal populations to the rhythm of the Brazilian percussion group Ritmistas MTL. A North-South connection is created between the boreal and Amazon forests, two great forests being clear-cut. There is still time to preserve them and to restore their habitats.
Video of the first performance ever presented during a session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. It was presented to the ambassadors of the countries of the Americas on the International Women’s Day Special Session: Gender Equality in Climate Action in the Americas. The performance addresses the intersectionality between ever-increasing income disparity, violence against indigenous, first nations women and all women, and plummeting wildlife populations brought by the relentless encroachment on natural habitats caused by deforestation and industrial agriculture which are a major contributing factor to climate change.
Performers: Selena Benally is wearing Too-Big-to-Fail ,Juno Brown is wearing Animal Population Decline, Erin Frisby is wearing Increasing Revenue Gap, Carly Harvey is wearing Overfishing, Elena Lacayo is wearing Haves-and-the-Have-Nots ing...
Animal Polulation Decline in Québec: the process, Documentary of the project, 2022
2 versions: 21 m 5 s and 8 m 41 s , 2022, HD video, French with English subtitles. See long version on vimeo
New york performances, 2012-2017
This Dress Measures Air Quality , 2017 - New york
Nexus Media News, 2017, 1 m 30 s
Interactive Median Income Dress: Acting as a Social Interface, 2015 - New york
Video of performance interacting with passerbys in three New York neighborhoods, 5 min 20 sec
The Increasing Revenue Gap Dress at Confucius Plaza, 2015 - New York
Structure displaying 1965 to 2013 data, 2 min 47 sec
The Haves and the Have Nots Dress, 2015 - New york
Migrations of the Arthropods, 2012 - New York
2012, 5 m 22s, English text, also French version,
1. Going to Work | Aller au travail 2. At the Studio | Au studio 3. Becoming an Insect | Devenir un insecte 4. Ready to Wear, Ready to Float | Prêt-à-porter, prêt-à-flotter: