BLOODLESS | BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA!: A Performance by Lani Asunción

Join Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) and Mobius member Lani Asunción with sound artists and musicians Matthew Azevedo and Magdalena Abrego for a performance for an immersive sonic multimedia performance with sound, video, and time as memory and remembering, BLOODLESS! | BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA!  The durational performance will take place from 3–8 PM with the sound-based portion of the performance taking place from 6–8PM.

BLOODLESS! | BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA! engaging traditions of durational performance and material exploration corresponding with performance works like those by Mobius founding member Marylin Arsem - Bodies of the Land (2022) and Dugô (2005) performed in Manila, Philippines. This new commissioned performance is an extension of work produced in Lani Asunción: Duty-Free Paradise (2024) curated by J.R. Uretsky exhibited at the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arsts. 

BLOODLESS: BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA! reflects upon the last monarch of Hawai’i Queen “Lydia” Lili'uokalani’s writing while imprisoned at Iolani Palace following the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by a Euro-American oligarchy who wanted control of the Hawaiian government. In 1898, the United States illegally annexed the once-free Hawai'i despite Queen Lili'uokalani’s letters protesting the U.S. assertion of ownership without due process or just compensation. In the same year, following the Spanish-American War the Treaty of Paris (1898) ended the period of Spanish colonization in the Philippines and granted possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. 

BLOODLESS: BLOOD, BONES, ALOHA! A Performance by Lani Asunción is part of a new commission in an archive and/or a repertoire, on view at TUAG/ Boston, 230 Fenway, through April 20, 2025.  

Lani Asunción (they/she) is a Filipinx interdisciplinary artist exploring the intricacies of identity and belonging, confronting the inner weaving of intergenerational trauma with ritualized performance and public art that serve as acts of reclamation. Through transmedia storytelling and research, they create socially conscious work that activates counter narratives of collective resistance to settler colonial foundations and points to collective liberation. Asunción has participated in residencies as a Future Frequencies Fellow at MASS MoCA Studios, Kala Arts Institute Fellow, Vermont Studio Center, and Santa Fe Art Institute. They have also received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MAP Fund, Live Arts Boston Grant from the Boston Foundation, Public Art for Spatial Justice Grant from New England Foundation for the Arts, Expanding Massachusetts Stories-Climalite Track Grant from Mass Humanities, in addition to, a Transformative Public Art Grant from the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture. Asunción is currently a visiting lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Studio within the Art Education Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. They are also the Curator and Public Art Manager of the Un-monument Initiative projects at Pao Arts Center (BCNC) in Chinatown, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture (MOAC) with the City of Boston funded by The Mellon Foundation. Asunción received their Masters of Fine Arts in Video and Performance at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut. They are founding member of the multimedia arts and performance collective Digital Soup, in addition to being a member of Mobius and BCA Studios Residency Program at Boston Center for the Arts. They have a live-work art studio at Midway Artist Studios in the Fort Point Arts Neighborhood.

Asunción is the Public Art Manager and Curator of the 2024 un-Monument Temporary Public Art Projects & Performances at Pao Arts Center in Chinatown as part of the Un-monument | Re-monument | De-Monument: Transforming Boston project supported by The Monuments Project at the Mellon Foundation. They are an Adjunct Faculty teaching courses in the Fine Arts 3D Media & Performing Arts Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt). Asunción is the Artistic Director and founding member of Digital Soup, a queer BIPOC multimedia art and performance collective, and a member of Mobius Artists Group, and the BCA Studio Residency (2022–2025). They create from their live/work studio at Midway Artist Studios located in the Fort Point Arts District. 

Magdalena Abrego is a guitarist, composer, and teaching artist based in New York. Influenced by free jazz and punk, Magdalena’s approach to her instrument playfully confronts tradition and embraces queer experimentalism. Her compositions have been described as an “unpredictable musical journey” (Boston Hassle), both “blissful and beautifully erratic” (Boston Compass), and NPR Music called her guitar tone “wooden, ancient and thick with mystic fuzz.” 

Magdalena presently serves as a faculty member in the Contemporary Musical Arts program at the New England Conservatory. Her expertise has garnered invitations to deliver guest lectures and provide guidance to ensembles at esteemed music institutions across the United States, including Berklee College of Music and Dartmouth College. Magdalena maintains an active performance schedule, spanning North America and Europe, performing at venues such as Jordan Hall, Roulette Intermedium, Bimhuis, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Matthew Azevedo is a sound-based artist and Assistant Professor of Sound Recording Technology at UMass Lowell.

Image: Lani Asunción: Duty-Free Paradise, 2024, Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts. Photo: Melissa Blackall.