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Facilitating Embodiment—with Shaun Leonardo— A conversation with Shaun Leonardo around bearing witness, the embodiment of another, and the stakes of imagination in his work “You Walk…”, “Between Four Freedoms”, “I Can’t Breathe”, “Primitive Games,” and Recess’s diversion program, Assembly. Leonardo leads exercises on the politics of walking, kissing and orientation.

Joined by Shaun Leonardo.

Shaun Leonardo’s multidisciplinary work negotiates societal expectations of manhood, namely definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. His performance practice, anchored by his work in Assembly—a diversion program for system-impacted youth at the arts nonprofit Recess, where he is Co-Director—is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment.

Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, is a recipient of support from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, Art for Justice and A Blade of Grass, and was recently profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, with a solo exhibition, The Breath of Empty Space, recently presented at MICA, MASS MoCA and The Bronx Museum. elcleonardo.com

(Socialise)