When Life is invoked in art practice, it is often equated pretty quickly with associations like “freedom,” “spontaneity,” and “disruption,” and I thought it was worth thinking about some other elements, especially the elements of the world that make Life possible.

Central to the structure of MOCA was the fact that it was not a collecting institution. This lent itself to fostering Conceptual art that would be ephemeral and performative. Marioni says that everything that happened at MOCA in its first years was “action by sculptors.”

What I get out of burlesque is being able to unabashedly perform sexuality and race. It’s expected for me to play with themes around sexuality. The other thing that I get out of it is that I can be silly, which is how I think about my sexuality.

Locke’s works are the antithesis of messy, sensationalized spectacles. Rather they are rigorous, almost meditative actions, poetic and often studded with the levity of their absurdity. Her projects generally involve two primary tools—the trained body (hers and/or others) and the still or video camera either recording or producing a live feed.

A big component of the work that I’m doing now comes from an assignment that I used to give my students: to make a piece for one person. These days I'm doing a lot of performance where the participants in the piece are the audience. It’s something that we’re doing together—a kinky, queer, sexual play—and I'm not interested in everybody having equal access to that. I think that you treat an experience differently when you have to win access to it.