- FROM THE EDITORS
- NEW MEMBERS & SPONSORS JULY 2017-JULY 2018
- MEMBERSHIP INFOGRAPHICS EXPLAINED
- THE OPENING POOL PARTY
- THE AL D. SCHOLARS
- VOLUNTEER THANK YOU
- THE BODY PIERCING ARCHIVE EXHIBIT
- THE BANQUET
- VOLUNTEER APPRECIATION AWARD
- CREATIVE INNOVATOR AWARD
- TECHNICAL INNOVATOR AWARD
- MEMORIES OF LAS VEGAS
- PIERCING WITH STEVE JOYNER
- CORE – CONSTRUCTS OF RITUAL EVOLUTION
- WE ARE CORE
- LOOKING BACK AT PERFORMANCE ART
Posts tagged 2018 Conference
Point 83: The Mentor Program
By Cale Belford, APP Mentor Program Coordinator
Well it’s that time of year again, and the Mentor Program is in full effect! If you are attending the annual APP Conference for the first time, then you are probably feeling overwhelmed and a little lost. Don’t fear! We have this amazing program in place to help you with your Conference experience!
So what exactly is the Mentor Program? It’s an incredible outreach system created by Ryan Ouellette in 2009; the idea was to essentially build small families that can work together as a group and lean on each other for support during the APP Conference. We have seen amazing progress with new attendees and have had wonderful feedback when it comes to the program. We look forward to continuing this process for years to come.
Our mentors are experienced conference goers and seasoned piercers who want to ensure that the new attendees have an outstanding time. To pair mentors and mentees, we use a survey system conducted by the program coordinator to create Mentor Teams based on similar interests, areas of knowledge, and class schedule needs. These small groups consisting of a mentor and two to three mentees will help to assist and encourage each other and provide beneficial headway to the conference experience as a whole. Mentors are here to support you if you become overwhelmed or require a little reassurance, if you want assistance with your class schedule, or perhaps just give you advice on where to find the best tacos or the most delicious vegan burger. It is essential to take full advantage of this opportunity! Many mentors and mentees develop connections with each other that last for years!
If you plan on attending Conference for the first time and have questions that you would like answered, need help selecting your classes, or you would simply like to have a friend before arriving in Vegas, then the APP Mentor Program is here to help! If you are a first or second year attendee and would like assistance from a mentor chosen specifically for you, please email mentors@safepiercing.org with MENTEE in the subject line. Be sure to include your name, telephone number, and other contact information in the email. There is technically no deadline to sign up as a mentee, but the earlier you enroll the more you will get out of the program. We cannot wait to meet you!
We genuinely want each and every one of our new attendees to get the most out of their conference experience and hope what the Mentor Program offers makes this possible. If you have any questions about the Mentor Program, becoming a mentor, or being a mentee at Conference, please do not hesitate to contact Cale at mentors@safepiercing.org.
I have been part of the mentor program since the inception. I’ve had mentees from all over the world, and enjoy helping make their conference experience one to remember. I’ve helped from beginning to end of Conference helping them pick classes, introducing them to other piercers, as well as follow up with them when Conference ends. I still keep in contact with some of the mentees and have worked side by side with a couple of them. I really enjoy seeing people who have been mentees step up and mentor others knowing they are a little overwhelmed their first year with so many people. If anyone sees myself or others walking around with Mentor Badges feel free to ask any questions you may have. I’m looking forward to seeing all the old faces as well as meeting a bunch of new ones.
Even before I went to my first Conference, I thought the Mentor Program was such a wonderful idea. I remember the very thought of being in such a huge city and only having a few people out of hundreds there that I knew filling me with panic. I asked a friend about the Mentor Program and if I should sign up to get a mentor. They convinced me not to saying, “you’ll know plenty of people there, you’ll have a blast!” While they were mostly right on both counts, I still wish I’d taken the opportunity to sign up with the program. Not only would I have had a greater feeling of security, but also had the chance to make one more friend who I might not have made otherwise.
I knew being a conference mentor was something I would want to do in the future when I, myself, had become more comfortable at the event. Being able to be a conference mentor to a new attendee is an extension of our ability to help others in a very meaningful way. I’m extremely grateful other like-minded piercers took the initiative to create such a wonderful program.
I have been involved with the Mentor Program for a few years and I love it! Spanish is my first language, and my ability to also speak Portuguese and English has allowed me to be become a much need- ed mentor to international attendees. It makes me happy to help attendees break the language barrier, and provide them with a more authentic experience at Conference. This platform for mentorship is fantastic for building a strong relationship with attendees who need guidance. I have built friendships over the years with my mentees and plenty of them still contact me with piercing questions, membership questions, or just a place to crash while they’re in town.
Point 83: Conference Performance Art Highlights
The photo first appeared in issue 49 of Piercing Fans
International Quarterly, 1996
Piercing in Performance:
Recollections from Five Artists
The artists will discuss some highlights of their ca- reers and look back at thematic arcs and motivations for their use of the body in performance.This evening’s event is in three parts: Allen Falkner, Steve Joyner, Lukas Zpira and then Ron Athey with Darryl Carlton. (Open to All)
Speakers:
Ron Athey was born in 1961. Self-educated (not to mention schooled) in the Westcoast punk and exper- imerimental music scenes, he started making noise and body-based performance work with his partner Rozz Williams in 1980, under the name PE. Ron Athey & Co.’s ‘90s work is known as the torture trilogy; it was often a direct or esoteric response to the AIDS pandemic, bodMod, the queer body, the polemics of blood. Solo work and operatic collaborations include Solar Anus, The Judas Cradle, Sebastiane, and the automatism opera, Gifts of the Spirit. Athey is a visiting lecturer at Roski School/USC, teaching a seminar on the history of California-centric countercultures, and periodically facilitates immersive performance art workshops.
Lukas Zpira is a body modification artist, nomadic performer, documentor of the contemporary fringes, and one of the major figures of the contemporary un- derground.
His works, closely related to nouveau realism, dif- fered in style to his writing and photography, which were far more influenced by surrealism and Dadaism, notably Duchamps and Man Ray’s rayographs. It was in 1993 that he took on the name Lukas Zpira, an anagram inspired from the surrealists. Multiple experiences and various exhibitions still left him unsatisfied, and he felt he had quickly reached the limits of his medium. He left the collective in 1995 to turn towards body art.
Soon after, Lukas opened Body Art/Weird Faktory in Avignon, the first studio in France dedicated to body modification.
In early 2004, in Japan, Lukas Zpira developed and wrote the body hacktivism manifesto, an artistic and political movement that asseverates the corporal biodiversity facing beauty standards imposed by Hollywood. More inspired by the bestial extra-terrestrials of Star Trek than the tribal references of the modern primitive movement, this activism of a new genre asserts the heritage of science fiction in the battle for body autonomy.
Additional Speakers:
Darryl Carlton, Allen Falkner, and Steve Joyner
A Fire in My Belly (1986–7).
Photo from issue 49 of
Piercing Fans International Quarterly, 1996.
Body Probe:
A History & Theory of Piercing in Performance Art
Since the late 1960s, performance artists have challenged the limits of art—and frequently courted controversy—through practices of strategic wounding or self-injury. Piercing the skin has been a core technique for testing the performing body’s capacity for pain, pleasure, or endurance—alongside controlled cutting or scarification, repetitive, or sustained action over prolonger durations, sadomasochistic techniques, or the appropriation of medical technologies, including surgery. This lecture will survey a range of uses of piercing in performance; and situate the use of piercing among a broader range of uses of pain, endurance, and body modification in art and performance. I will then proceed to distinguish piercing as a distinct technique or technology in performance art, by teasing out what might be uniquely meaningful in the probing and puncturing of skin, and the spectacle of the permeability of bodies. (Open to All)
Speakers:
Dominic Johnson is Reader (Associate Professor) in Performance and Visual Culture in the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (2012); Theatre & the Visual (2012); and The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art (2015). He is the editor of five books, including most recently Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013); and (with Deirdre Heddon) It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells (2016). From 2005 to 2012, his frequently bloody performances (solo and in collaboration with Ron Athey) were shown around the world, including at festivals of performance and live art in Copenhagen, Ljubljana, Rome, Toronto, Vienna, Zagreb, and elsewhere, and throughout the United Kingdom, including most notably at the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow, and at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of ‘Gay Icons’.
Point 83: Conference, 2018 from Editor Kendra Jane B.
By Kendra Jane B., Point Editor
It is hard to believe that yet another Conference is right around the corner. It is always so odd to me that something can feel so far away and yet so close all at the same time.
As you dive into our annual pre-Conference issue I know each of you are excited about a different aspect of Conference. For some of us it is the once a year family reunion. For others it is the endless supply of knowledge at hand. Yet for others it offers a break from the everyday; a week to get away from the everyday humdrum of life and revitalize themselves for another year. This will be my eighth Conference (I have attended every one since I began piercing) and every year I take away a different and yet equally valuable lesson which often not only applies to piercing but to life as a whole. This year as I prepare for Conference I am trying to do so in a more mindful way. I am going into it knowing what I want to get out of it. This is what I urge all of you to do as your compose your check-lists and cross off the to do’s as we get closer and closer; think about what it is you want to gain from our week in the desert. I urge all of you to be mindful of the process, the preparation, and the prospects that will all be a part of your conference experience.
This year I hope to find a renewed connection, a connection with the people of our industry. I want to know why you do what you do. The fact that we are highlighting performance art means I can gain a better understanding of others’ connections to the industry. I am beyond thrilled that we have so many great classes as well as the Body Piercing Archive (BPA) exhibit devoted to performance art. To me performance art is the physical embodiment of someone’s connection with their emotions as art. I can’t wait to hear their stories and learn why they do what they do. So turn the page, read on, and get a taste of what this year’s Association of Professional Piercers Conference has to offer.
Point 83: Conference, 2018 – from Editor Marina Pecorino
As a brand new mom—my son will be less than four months old in mid-July—the decision to attend Confer ence this year was a difficult one. I absolutely adore my newfound role as a full-time caregiver, but maintaining my work responsibilities while caring for my son is certainly a balancing act. I look forward to the reprieve of Conference, where for a week, my only responsibilities will be to the organization and community that I’ve worked for and been passionate about for over ten years. That said, I have plenty of photos and videos of my Tummy Monster to share with anyone who’s interested.
Again this year, I’m looking forward to experiencing the Body Piercing Archive, delving deeper into our rich history and learning about interconnected art forms that make up the body modification community. Another high point for me is reconnecting with my Conference volunteer family; we stay connected throughout the year online, but it’s different to be able to give and receive hugs and in person support.
Beginning last year, the Alternative To The Bar (ATTB) activities are offered in the evenings; a perfect fit for the more introverted among us and those hoping to avoid drinking and smoking. Unfortunately, my Conference responsibilities often keep me late into the night, but I do my best to participate. Playing board/card/table-top games and watching body mod related movies with fellow piercers is right up my alley, so this is my favorite place to be after classes are over and my work has been completed.
And then there are all the amazing classes to get excited about. My agenda this year includes Photography For the Modern Studio: Crop it like its hot!, In the Beginning There Was Gauntlet, Investigating Cross Contamination, Color Theory for Body Piercers, and Women in Leadership. Honestly, the registration process is always a struggle for me. The class offerings are expansive and there are only so many hours in the day. Inevitably, I can’t attend everything that I would like to, so prioritizing is important. This is one of the many ways that the Mentor Program assists new attendees; providing guidance during the class selection process, to tailor fit the needs, skill level, and schedule of participating mentees. Read further into this issue to find out more about the Mentor Program.
For those of you attending Conference this year, I can not wait to see you. If we haven’t met yet, don’t hesitate to stop me in the halls or find me after class to say hi. If we have met, chances are I’ll be too shy and introverted to strike up conversation first, but don’t let that stop you from taking the lead. For those of you who can’t be with us, I encourage you to try for next year. The experience is unforgettable, and the knowledge and networking is unsurpassed.