Indira Allegra
Blackout

ISBN 978-0-9985006-2-1
June 2017, English, set of 6 books, 5 x 5 in, 50 pages each, b&w, softcover
Design: Sming Sming Books

Blackout is a set of six books, based on the original video work of Indira Allegra. Allegra studies the weave structure of police uniforms alongside statements made by families of those lost to police violence including: Aiyana Stanley-Jones (7), Tamir Rice (12), John Crawford III (22), Amadou Diallo (23), Tarika Wilson (26), Eric Garner (43), Yvette Smith (45), and Eleanor Bumpurs (66).

Indira Allegra's work explores memorial as a genre and a vital part of the human experience. Allegra re-imagines what a memorial can feel like and how it can function through the practices of performance, sculpture, and installation. The three practices are intertwined - with sculptures at times initiating performances, performances creating sculptures and sculptures expanding into installation environments. Deeply informed by quiet, inner life and the ritual, relational and performative aspects of weaving, Allegra explores the repetitive crossing of forces held under tension be they material, social or emotional.

Their work has been featured in exhibitions at Museum of Arts and Design, The Arts Incubator in Chicago, John Michael Kholer Arts Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Center for Craft Creativity and Design, Weinberg/Newton and the Museum of the African Diaspora among others. Their commissions include performances for SFMOMA, de Young Museum, The Wattis Institute, City of Oakland and SFJAZZ Poetry Festival. Allegra’s work has been featured in ARTFORUM, BBC Radio 4, Art Journal, San Francisco Chronicle and Surface Design Magazine. They have been the recipient of the Artadia Award, Mike Kelley Artist Project Grant, MAP Fund, Windgate Craft Fellowship and Jackson Literary Award among others. They are the 2019/2020 Burke Prize winner, Fleishhacker Eureka Fellow and a triennial 2019-2022 Montalvo Art Center Sally and Don Lucas Artist Fellow.