Mask

Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs

- I Want, 2023, performance still, MOCA LA. Image courtesy of WORKSHOP.

I Want, 2023, performance still, MOCA LA. Image courtesy of WORKSHOP.

Oh how I love a mask. How it allows for simultaneity of identities, the power to invoke and evoke. Multiple personas can come to party in one room – the selves of one body at different ages, in different moods. I’m also interested in gorgons, headlessness; Fvases are vessels that show faces in negative space.

At the Threshold, 2022, performance still, Quality Coins, Yucca Valley, CA. Image courtesy of Sarah Lyon     NO KINGS, 2017, performance still, LTD. Image courtesy of Liz Toonkel/Town Hall.

(Left) At the Threshold, 2022, performance still, Quality Coins, Yucca Valley, CA. Image courtesy of Sarah Lyon. (Right) NO KINGS, 2017, performance still, LTD. Image courtesy of Liz Toonkel/Town Hall.

A Chant Came to Her Lips, 2018, performance still, Anchorage Museum. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.     A Chant Came to Her Lips, 2018, performance still, Anchorage Museum. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.

A Chant Came to Her Lips, 2018, performance still, Anchorage Museum. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.

Spooky Writer Face, 2017, performance still, Weird Night. Image courtesy of Mariah Garnett.

Spooky Writer Face, 2017, performance still, Weird Night. Image courtesy of Mariah Garnett.

Fvases: Jiha and Argenta, 2018, cardboard, plaster, acrylic paint. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.     Fvases: Jess and Stephanie, 2018, cardboard, plaster, acrylic paint. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.

(Left) Fvases: Jiha and Argenta, 2018, cardboard, plaster, acrylic paint. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen. (Right) Fvases: Jess and Stephanie, 2018, cardboard, plaster, acrylic paint. Image courtesy of Ry Rocklen.

At the Threshold, 2022, plaster, lockdown sheets, chair, Quality Coins, Yucca Valley, CA. Image courtesy of Sarah Lyon.

At the Threshold, 2022, plaster, lockdown sheets, chair, Quality Coins, Yucca Valley, CA. Image courtesy of Sarah Lyon.

Through an interdisciplinary practice that incorporates sound, sculpture, scent, and performance, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs creates new myths and their paraphernalia: hymns, relics, costume, instruments, rites and rituals for an alternate past, and still-possible future.

Riggs is the creator of the site-responsive performance ensemble, Song of Eurydice; and leads Community Chorus, a drop-in vocal experiment. She has presented work at MOCA LA, the deYoung Museum, Hammer Museum, the Getty Center, REDCAT, the Broad, High Desert Test Sites, Anchorage Museum, and CURRENT:LA Public Works Triennial.