A Visual Art Exhibition
Created by Samuel Eisen-Meyer
Coming soon to the CoHo Theatre: An immersive, multimedia call for social transformation.
January 5 – 15, 2022
Gallery will be open to the public between 4:00 – 9:00 PM PST
Walkups welcome
Portland local Samuel Eisen-Meyers latest is an immersive, multimedia installation that walks viewers through a meditation on the psychology and deception of United States domestic imperialism.
The result will be a FREE exhibit, hosted at CoHo Theater (January 5-15, 2022), with an artist talkback after the show on Friday, Jan. 14th from 8 – 9 PM.
Everyday in Oregon, we inhabit imperialism. In “Walking the World with this Fire,” (short films, physical installation, large scale painting, light and sound design, 3D fabrication) E-M provides space to reflect on our condition and reality. Visuals, like a painting of Christopher Columbus adorned in police regalia, suggest how explicit imperialism has adapted and morphed over the centuries.
The visitor will encounter a 10 ft. by 40 ft. wooden backdrop brought to life by painting, physical objects, sounds and projections. Five short video segments play on a loop as sound narrates visual imagery and set design. Behind the scenes footage and sketches provide a roadmap. The public is invited to walk through this theatrical installation at CoHo Theater.
Deception is a pillar of the imperial project. Will we question the nation-state? Expect to be unsettled as you are invited to decipher the status quo.
CoHo Productions and Samuel Eisen-Meyers are thrilled to bring this exhibit to the theatre, completely free of charge. Donations towards this project are gratefully accepted in advance or at the door. All funds received are tax-deductible and will be split 50/50 between the artist and CoHo. Funds will be used to support independently produced art, ensuring living wages for the artist and staff, and preserving the longevity and sustainability of this project.
Feel like lending your support? Donate today!
ABOUT THE ARTIST
“I am a fish in water.
People say fish don’t know what water is. They live and breathe it, it’s everywhere they go and they can’t escape it.
In America, imperialism is all around us.
Every building we see, every prison, every law is a remnant of its continued presence.
In this show I use the mediums I understand and am learning about to portray this reality.
I am a fish in water.
Imperialism is the water.“
SAMUEL EISEN-MEYERS (b. 1990, Portland, Oregon) worked on this installation while co-founding an arts coalition founded on the principles to bring power, autonomy and resources to independent artists and works, producing music and engaging politically, including via a “We are the Dream: Spring Break Out” community conversation hosted by Don’t Shoot Portland. He is a conceptual and multidisciplinary artist focusing on themes related to perspective, media, popular culture, love and social transformation.
Through collaboration, music, filmmaking, painting, video, community art projects and dance, Samuel has engaged Portland’s community, worked in schools and been featured in concert halls, theaters, museums and galleries. He works full time as an artist, creative entrepreneur, composer, performing artist, small business facilitator and community organizer.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I began to see the connection between art, politics, resistance, revolution, and community at a young age. I also saw the impact, importance, and necessity to pass on the support my community afforded me wherever, and whenever I could. I began writing music at the age of 12. I was performing in some of Portland’s oldest, and now mostly shuttered, Blues clubs at the age of 13. Simultaneously I was painting. I have never been able to focus on just one medium, or one outlet. Music and material arts are both pieces of me. They draw from each other.
I have been working on this exhibit for almost two years. All of my work up until this point of my life has informed my current practice and my abilities to cross-pollinate with different mediums. Short films, scaled productions, concert tours, event planning, music production, community organizing; they inform the entirety of the scope of this project. They enable me to tie together all the mediums I have been using since I was a teenager. Art and music are the tools that I have, and that my community has, to communicate and impact change. Art will always have a large part in changing an individual’s intellectual headspace and our collective social fabric and creative will.