Break the Frame in Rhythms of Chance.
Dance. Dance. Dance.

—katnancy, 2026

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

hello, strangelings ❤

I’m an artist who collaborates, plays, dances, writes, and writes, and writes, and edits, and edits, and edits — into oblivion, sometimes.

I perceive/experience/believe art to be the Truth-seeking sinew of society, the fire we gather ‘round, reminding us to remember — we are all connected. Kapwa. We need art in everyday life, as a human technology of empathy.¹ There are many different kinds of intelligence, ways of knowing, and I don’t judge the different kinds in a hierarchical way, but in my opinion, empathy, is the foundational intelligence.

I practice photomedia, grounding in the materiality of experimental photography (drawing with light + chemistry), and expanding this into experimental film (time), and installation (space). Through these I live out my desire to break the frame and rip the script eg. cut, tear, scratch, lick, bite, burn, kiss², melt, rot, glitch³, remix⁴ and re-member⁵ the photograph as an embodied act of rejecting socialised barriers produced by and for hegemonies through images. These become rituals to stay awake, and remember to remember the constructed and manipulative of nature of representation and perception, and their influence on determining value, power and priority. I consider the camera obscura / dark chamber / darkroom as womb space, and the photographic process as séance… making possible windows of communication and collaboration [art as invitation⁶] between worlds, and co-conceiving and midwifing new worlds that may not exist or be perceived without the photographic process (& all its interferences). The ritual repetition in experimental photo & animation processes conjures a rhythmic dance, mirroring the rhythmic visual incantations spoken/sung by the images (within, without, between, beyond themselves). Through sympoiesis with chance as an act of faith/suspension of disbelief, I surrender control and dictation, and the images begin to sing themselves into existence, transform, layer, obscure or retract themselves. I, in turn, Listen.

My work is in lineage of, and in ongoing conversation with, the work of myriad artists (mostly women), many of whom I am blessed to call friends. I am deeply implicated in the curation of my exemplars, for whatever work I devotedly devour, enters my subconscious, and I unconsciously become. I have directed the development of my perception, and artistic voice, via this curation. I choose artists, rather than artworks, returning again and again to the same artists’ work, because I am not picking and extracting specific techniques in a mechanical way, or concepts in a theoretical way. I am deeply invested in each of my favourite artists, their evolutions, and the values they embody via their practices. Their power is my power, my power is theirs. I allow myself to Listen and be transformed, and this is a life-long act of love.

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Footnotes:

1. _{“art at its core is this human technology of empathy.” — Val, Artists Shouldn’t Network, 2026, video essay}
   
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2. _{When I include kissing in this list, I’m considering the kiss as conscious protest and mutual disarmament. “[Heidi] Dorow described kissing as a blood pact. ‘Everyone in the world tells me to be afraid of you, and that you’re a danger,’ was how she described its rationale. Kissing someone refuted this. It was a way of saying, ‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m with you.’” Making Out, Making Change: The History of Queer Kiss-Ins by Stef Rubino —Jan 13, 2025} ↩︎
3. _{“Glitch Is Error
   We are the most fantastic and beautiful mistake. Never meant to survive, we are still here: an error in the algorithm. We are not empty signifiers, however; we are not dead-end hyperlinks. We reject the violent act of naming. We will reconfigure ourselves as we see fit. Modifying and recoding, we choose our own names, build our own families and communities, proudly fail in the present as we dream new futures.”— Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, Russel, L, 2020} ↩︎
4. _{“Glitch Is Remix
   Affirming our role in building new worlds, we will imagine, innovate, and remix. We will rearrange and repurpose by any means necessary, rendering what rises from this rebirth unrecognizable from the violence of its original. We will create fissures in the social and cultural algorithm as an active act of advocacy, advocating for the user, advocating for ourselves and advocating for one another.” — Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, Russel, L, 2020} ↩︎
5. _{“Filipino indigenous cultures and the concepts we borrow such as Kapwa and Loob are all primarily Land-based. University of the Philippines Humanities professor, Felipe de Leon, Jr. names Filipino culture as inherently shamanistic and animistic. The animist worldview asserts that all of creation is sacred. It is the role and function of the Babaylan to mediate between the world of the spirits and the human and non-human world and re-member for us the deep connectedness between worlds; thus suturing and healing the split in our psyche.” — Mendoza Strobel, L, 2010, BABAYLAN: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous, introduction here} ↩︎
6. _{“New worlds are born from invitations.” — McIntyre, L and Cumti, k, 2024, like a fire we gather round: Phytograms, Ecologies, and Multivocal Agency} ↩︎