Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya “Qualia - Transcendence”

Czech Center New York / The Bohemian National Hall

poster for Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya “Qualia - Transcendence”

This event has ended.

Qualia - Transcendence is a new installation by New York based multidisciplinary artists Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya. Qualia - Transcendence is part of the artist’s Qualia Series.

The series alters pre-existing spaces, structures or objects, primarily using dozens of white masonry strings to reveal the observer, the observed and the process of observation. This practice invites the viewer to reconsider their seemingly ordinary surroundings and listen to a realm of perception that is unquantifiable, internal, and subjective. In Qualia - Transcendence, the artists reflect on their different race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, their sense of self, and the interconnected nature of the world.

Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya’s subjects often question the nature of being, the ambivalence of human nature, the perception of the spectator’s gaze, the intervals between spaces, objects, and time, the energetic flow of spaces and bodies, and the tension between the organic and the inorganic. LEIMAY seeks to locate itself at a fluid point of confluence – of contrasting nationalities, cultural viewpoints and personal perspectives, multiple artistic practices, and fundamental existential questions. The Qualia Series reflects that desire.

This installation is dedicated to Václav Havel — playwright, dissident and former President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Czech Center New York will be presenting Qualia-Transcendence as one of their projects to commemorate the 80th birth anniversary of the late Václav Havel.

The Opening Reception will feature a performance by members of the LEIMAY Ensemble.

From Vaclav Havel’s speech at the Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, July 4, 1994.

“… In today’s multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies – it must be rooted in self-transcendence. Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe. Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world. Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction.”


Bill de Blasio is to declare September 28 “Václav Havel Day”. This is the name day of the former president, and is also a national holiday in the Czech Republic honoring the legendary founder of the country, St. Wenceslas. Havel shared a name with this figure.

For the event, the Czech Center in New York – the Václav Havel Library Foundation, as well as our Library in Prague are joining forces to present a rich cultural program of art, music, theatre and forums. The full list of events can be found a www.vhlf.org

The artistic duo of Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya create collaborative works ranging from sculptural, video, mixed media, and light installation art, to contemporary performances, publications, and research projects. Ximena and Shige are the artistic directors of the LEIMAY Ensemble, a group of six dancers and performers who work regularly throughout the year creating body rooted performances of high physicality and meditative stillness, and developing the LEIMAY Ludus Practice.

Ximena and Shige are based in Brooklyn, New York at their home, CAVE, where along with the LEIMAY Ensemble they develop and share their work. They also show work at larger theaters, visual art galleries, museums and public places in New York and the United States (BAM Fisher, HERE, Joyce SoHo, The Brooklyn Museum, Japan Society, The New Museum, The Lab Gallery, The Watermill Center, The Asian Museum of San Francisco, The Carnegie Mellon University, The National Museum of Dance, The New Hazlett Theater) as well as internationally.

Their work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New York Press, The MIT Press Journal Theater Drama Review (TDR), Hyperallergic, and other magazines and publications.

Garnica and Moriya’s work is inspired and informed by an expansive community of artists, teachers, and artistic collaborators. The Qualia Series started in 2009 as a series of installations at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and has grown through many iterations and collaborations since.

Awards and accolades in support of Garnica and Moriya’s works include: the Armani Design Award (2009), a Ford Foundation Fellowship, an Urban Artist Initiative (UAI/NYC) Fellowship, a Van Lier Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grants, two Puffin Foundation Grants, two Asian American Arts Alliance Grants, a Japan Foundation Grant, and acceptance into the BAM Professional Development Program. Residencies include Movement Research at the New Museum (2012), HERE Arts Center (2009-2012) Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center (2007/2009-2011), the New Hazlett Theater (2011), Bessie Schonberg Individual Choreographers Residency at the Yard (2010), the National Museum of Dance (2010), and Hanoi Contemporary Arts Center (2005). Garnica’s and Moriya’s work has been presented around the globe in galleries and theaters of all sizes in Colombia, Japan, Mexico, France, Spain, Netherlands, Vietnam, Finland and the US.

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Schedule

from September 27, 2016 to October 27, 2016
Closing Reception and Performance: October 27, 2016, 7pm

Opening Reception on 2016-09-27 from 18:00
Reception and Performance

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