One thing we take from Juliana’s performances is a celebration of being across and beyond conservative ideas of what it is to be human; a resistance to the caging of people within fixed selves, private bodies or prescribed identities. Their performances chart the dissonant space and discrepancy between the presumed fixed norms of social life and the fluid lived experience those norms don’t allow for. They revel in voice and touch, pheromones and the rhythmic friction between flesh, bodies and their environments – both IRL and online – where individual space gives way to a sensory awareness of how our existence emanates from our interconnected transition, flux and movement together. They point towards a common, social aspect of transition and blackness. As poetic dances between names, identities and genders, they explore how trans people signify something that we should all be doing – altering and refusing to accept as a concrete reality the trail of signifiers we allegedly accrue as the documented proof of a stability that we’re each presumed to have.

Juliana is developing a new performance especially for Episode 8.

Juliana Huxtable

We think Juliana exists as a kind of emanation of an international sub-underground social entanglement that expands beyond categories of identity or authenticity. She produces and collaborates on a borderless array of self-portraiture, poetry, text-based prints, performance, writing, revolutionary queer club music and parties, high and low fashion, poetry, DJing, and our absolute favourite tumblr [julianahuxtable.tumblr.com]. She’s shown her visual work and performed at many of North America’s major arts institutions inc. MoMA PS1, Whitney Museum of American Art and the New Museum 2015 Triennial; modelled for Hood by Air, DKNY, Eckhaus Latta, BCALLA and is one of the faces of H&M’s upcoming collaboration with French fashion house Kenzo; runs one of the coolest queer parties in New York (Shock Value), has DJ’d at many of the best international, queer club nights, including Ghe20g0th1k, and is a key figure in that same international genderqueer revolution in dance music that Elysia Crampton also contributes to.

Joseph Heffernan

Joe is a pianist, percussionist, and composer with a background in classical music and heavy metal. He has composed for the International Contemporary Ensemble and Brevard Music Festival, and has toured Europe as a drummer/pianist. Heffernan has collaborated with Juliana Huxtable several times, at venues like White Columns Gallery. His most recent work was a residency at 47 Canal with Sadaf H Nava. Heffernan was born in Kansas and grew up in Northwest Arkansas.

Ahya Simone

Ahya Simone is a multitalented black trans woman based in Detroit, Michigan. She’s classically trained harpist, composer, model, and activist. She’s scored amongst other thinsg dream hampton and T. Miller’s “Treasure: From Tragedy to Trans Justice Mapping – A Detroit Story”. As a model, she’s featured in ad campaigns shot by Bruce Weber and appeared in VOGUE Magazine. Ahya is one of the founding mothers of the Trans Sistas of Color Project, an emerging organisation dedicated to impacting and empowering the lives of Trans women of color in Detroit.

Juliana talks about the gestation and motivations of the project in this article in Office Magazine.