The Lab

The Lab is a nonprofit experimental art and performance space located in the Mission District of San Francisco.

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Julz Hale Mary: Trauma is a Party (of One)

7:30pm Doors / 8:30pm Show / 9:15pm Dance Party
$15 Guests / Free for Members

Trauma is a Party (of One) is a performance piece by Julz Hale Mary using the container of a fashion show to thematically explore systemic inequalities, individual and collective trauma, and mental health interventions. Challenging American culture’s desire for pathologized, over-medicated, emotionally docile citizens, the performance looks at what it means to perform normativity when one wears oppression. Julz Hale Mary will play host “Dean Ile”—the Executive Director of a mental health nonprofit who negligently and cluelessly peeps in on the “progress” between clients and counselors through live video broadcast. Avant-garde seasonal (affective) looks will push this societal quagmire into the spotlight, opening up the senses to one of society's most mind-altering institutions: the mental health industrial complex.

Artist and Fashion Designer: Julz Hale Mary
Executive Seamstress: Bobbi Rohs

Models/Artists:
Craig Calderwood
Julz Hale Mary
Persia
Sophia Wang
Titania Kumeh

DJs
Jasmine Infiniti
Shawna Shawnté
Toshio

Cisters to the Cistem
Amber Fargano
Vishinna Turner
Photography: Shot in the City

Julz Hale Mary is a narrative multimedia artist who pulls from the spirit of "Pollyanna gone-wrong," queering the dissonance they experienced growing up in the superficially positive but grim Central Valley. Combining personal story-telling with systemic analysis, they liberate stale archetypes through fashion design, sewing, photography, self-portraiture, soft sculpture, video, drag, and performance. Julz consistently plays with themes of social conditioning, trauma, and resilience, and recently created their first performative fashion show called "Trauma is a Party (of One)". Their art has been featured at venues such as SOMArts, The Lab, Artist Television Access, Submission, The Stud, both Seattle and Boston LGBT Film Festivals, San Francisco Arts Commission, Root Division, The Center for Sex and Culture and YBCA– as well as internationally. 

Photos by Shot in the City

Photos taken by The Lab's photographer-in-residence, Robert Divers Herrick.