Gravity in Motion / Gravedad en movimiento

What happens when a body becomes weightless? What happens when it corresponds with a machine, an architectural structure, or a common object? For an afternoon of performance across Gallery 1, the Lit & Luz Festival brings together Bárbara Foulkes — Mexico-based artist and Jackman Goldwasser Resident at the Hyde Park Art Center — and Chicago-based artists Mauricio López F. and Camille Casemier to explore these questions through live performance. Performing three original works, the artists activate the edges of motion and space through tension, transformation, and play with objects, machines, sound, and everyday gestures. Questioning the ordinary, these encounters become spaces of possibility, where materials take on new lives and unexpected meanings emerge.

This event opens the 2026 Lit & Luz Festival week, featuring arts, literature, and bilingual programming in accessible arts and literature venues across the city of Chicago Nov 8 - Nov 14.

This event is presented in partnership with the Lit & Luz Festival, the Hyde Park Art Center and the University of Chicago's Department of Visual Arts.

¿Qué sucede cuando un cuerpo pierde su peso? ¿Qué ocurre cuando interactúa con una máquina, una estructura arquitectónica o un objeto cotidiano? Durante una tarde de performances en vivo, la Galería 1 del Art Center, dentro el Festival Lit & Luz, tendrá reunidos a Bárbara Foulkes —artista radicada en México y residente del programa Jackman Goldwasser en el Hyde Park Art Center— junto a los artistas radicados en Chicago Mauricio López F. y Camille Casemier para explorar estas interrogantes a través del performance. Mediante tres obras inéditas, los artistas activarán las fronteras entre movimiento y espacio —a través de tensión, transformación y juego con objetos, máquinas, sonido y gestos cotidianos—. Al cuestionar lo ordinario, estos encuentros se convierten en espacios de posibilidad donde los materiales cobran nueva vida y emergen significados inesperados.

Este evento inaugura la semana del Festival Lit & Luz 2026, el cual ofrece una programación bilingüe de arte y literatura en espacios accesibles en toda la ciudad de Chicago, del 8 al 14 de noviembre.

Presentado en colaboración con el Hyde Park Art Center y el Comité de Práctica Abierta (Open Practice Committee) del Departamento de Artes Visuales de la Universidad de Chicago.

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The 13th annual Lit & Luz Festival of Language, Literature, and Art—as featured in, WBEZ’s Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons, Chicago Review of Books, Block Club Chicago, and more—takes place November 8 to November 14, 2026. Lit & Luz is a one-of-a-kind, cross-cultural and multilingual festival, bringing  together renowned writers, visual artists, performers, and musicians from Mexico and Chicago for a week-long series of public programming at venues throughout Chicago.

Organized this year under the theme of “Edge/Borde” artists and writers will gather to present their work with performances, artist talks, writing workshops, poetry readings and panel discussions to consider the complexities of official borders, as well as the ways in which soft and hard edges are constructed within cities and regions—and within artistic practices themselves—through language, culture, identity, and policy

To learn more, visit litluz.org