Lexa Walsh
I work as a collaborator, experience maker, explorer, facilitator and participant.
The essence of my work is situated in performance and direct engagement. I do interactive public art projects and performances, which bring together members of the public to share in conversation, cheer, song, dance and food. Through these and other social interactions, observations and interpretations (sometimes misinterpretations), I make site-specific projects that investigate elevating everyday activities into tools for community and relationship building, place and space making, pedagogy and resource sharing. The resulting documentation/residue can take the form of audio recordings, video, printed matter, photography or sculpture, addressing subjects such as the radical nature of positivity, generosity and reciprocity, ritual and inclusion.
I have been realizing this work internationally, so that participants, & viewers alike can make a comparative, anthropological exploration. Thus, sometimes, I work as a cultural ambassador.
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Lexa Walsh was born near Philadelphia as the youngest of 15 children. She has lived, worked, exhibited and toured in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, the Pacific Northwest as well as across Europe and Asia. Walsh was a recipient of the CEC Artslink Award, Meet the Composer Award, and the Gunk Grant, and has done several international artist residencies and projects. Her work is informed by her upbringing, extensive travels, community work and experimental music and performance projects. She was an independent cultural worker in the Bay Area and worked for many years as a curator and arts administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose mission is to foster cross-cultural tolerance and understanding through the arts. She co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra and is a member of the Czech-American a cappella group Kačkala. These projects have been realized at venues such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Exploratorium, The Lab, New Langton Arts, Mills College Art Museum and Cité de la Musique. She is currently Artist in Residence at Portland Art Museum.
