Through an interdisciplinary practice that incorporates sound, sculpture, scent, and site-specific collective performance, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs (b.1981) creates new myths and their paraphernalia - hymns, relics, costumes, instruments, rites and rituals - for an alternate past, and still-possible future. Riggs was born in Oakland, came of middle-age in Los Angeles, and currently lives in Los Angeles and the High Desert of Southern California. Her work explores themes of magic and myth, connection and isolation, conflicts between structures of power and modes of care, and overwhelm in the Anthropocene. In her new and reimagined mythologies polyphonic monsters, mothers, and others occupy and traverse in-between zones, otherworlds, and innerworlds.
Riggs is known for creating experimental opera and vocal performances that collapse the boundaries between audience and performers including compost opera All Again/Todo de Nuevo (CURRENT LA Public Works Biennial, w/ choreographer Annie Gimas); A Journey That Wasn’t: Empire Folds (The Broad Museum); Sky Score (The Getty Center); The Portal: Mothers Choir (Hammer Museum, w/ Jagangormarsh); and GORGON (REDCAT Theater). She is the creator of the site-responsive performance ensemble, Song of Eurydice; and the founder of Community Chorus, a drop-in, on-call, protest chorus which she leads with conductor Tany Ling. Riggs has also presented work at the SFMOMA, deYoung Museum, Anchorage Museum, Portland Art Museum, Printed Matter, Bangkok University, and Berkeley Art Museum. She has been featured in NYT Magazine, LA Times, Artforum.com, Frieze.com, X-TRA, and Rookie Magazine.
Press:
Trinie Dalton / Artforum
Travis Diehl / Frieze
Catherine Womack / LA Times
Brica Wilcox and Travis Diehl / X-TRA
Michael Slenske / LALA Magazine
Aminatou Sow + Ann Friedman / Call Your Girlfriend
Ryan Bradley / New York Times Magazine
Alyson Zetta / Rookie
Busra Erkara / Nylon Magazine (print)
Maura M. Lynch / Rookie