TESSA PATTERN TAKES A PICTURE

Tessa Pattern Takes a Picture, 2014 - present

Rehearsal

Lead Dancer and Rehearsal Director:

Marissa Ruazol

Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis Instructor:

Ed Groff

Actress:

Małgorzata Białek

Composition, Electronics:

Phillip Curtis

Sound Technicians:

Piotr Żelazko (Warsaw),

Paul Richardson (London)

Costume Consultant:

Jill Spector

Videographer:

Ollie Hammick

Assistant Video Editor:

Sean Flaherty

A commission by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

As part of Performing Histories: Live Artwork Examining the Past

The performance program is organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator, and

Ana Janevski, Associate Curator, with Leora Morinis, Curatorial Assistant,

Department of Media and Performance.

Performing Histories is made possible by MoMA's Wallis Annenberg

Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.

Tessa Pattern Takes a Picture is an ongoing film project developed through performances, research studies,

sculptural works, and writing.

In 2023, Nipper received a Guggenheim Fellowship in support of the project’s continued development.

PHOTOS AND VIDEO STILLS

DESCRIPTION

Nipper set out to use performance as a way to think through the

visual and structural ideas of a film.

Organized around long-exposure photography,

rotary mechanisms,

exposure systems,

and picture formation,

the work holds the lens open long enough for darkness to register.

At its center is a suspended fabric cylinder

activated by bass frequencies and bodies traveling around its perimeter,

operating as a lens,

chamber, and optical apparatus.