Jesse McLaughlin

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Artist Statement:

“How do we truncate the “natural” paths of others? “A Brief Study” is a walking score through the Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn (originally my final project for Leslie Satin’s Scores and Structures class). The score travels from the entrance of the cemetery to the gravesite of Yusuf Hawkins, a teenage boy who was the victim of a fatal act of racialized violence during the turbulent New York City summer of 1989. The scored walk to Yusuf is determined by a GPS-tracked seasonal migration of a mountain lion named M56. M56 was tracked by researchers at UC Davis who were studying disruptions in the natural migrations of mountain lions in Southern California. The big cats in that region are often killed or maimed by attempts to cross major highways in search of food and water. In fact, by 2010, “the scientists [had] collared 53 lions. Twenty-five of those [had] died from disease, collisions with cars, unlawful hunting and state-approved killings to remove animals deemed a nuisance.” M56 made history as the only mountain lion to cross I-15 unscathed. He continued many, many more miles south, until the hungry cat killed a sheep belonging to a farming family near the border of Mexico. According to a source on US agriculture, “If the owner of a deceased domestic animal requests its killer be put down, officials are obligated to do so.” M56 was shot. Laid overtop the footage is a recorded conversation between old friends on topics of family, transition, and intentionality.”

Photograph of the artist wearing an open button down shirt and a hatBIO:

Jesse McLaughlin is a multi-media artist born in Bronxville, NY during the final game of the 1998 World Series. His dad was very distracted.

His recent work can be seen at Gibney and Rutgers University (Huddled Spaces’ Cowboy Mouth). He received conservatory acting training from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts before transferring to NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. He is now a senior studying compassionate performance practices. Jesse currently interns for Movement for Everybody and serves as a curator for the Gallatin Arts Festival. His recent interests include chimerism, hotlines, and the long-mysterious lifecycle migration of the American Eel. He is currently working on “Every Time I Think I Have Something I Sneeze,” a global performance and meditation on form, memory, transition, choice and, the truly unmappable, death.

Visit his Vimeo