PLACE:
Fayetteville, AR
BIO:
Simone Cottrell (she/her/គាត់), the owner of Rachhana Creative Consulting, is a multi-hyphenated creative whose medium is Justice. Simone’s most recent creative works have included: Make Your Manifesto: Workshop for Creatives, Aesop’s Fables: A Reimagining for Nonprofits zine collection, One Nation One Project – Phillips County, AR, Now Think About Numbers… (a protest public art piece with lead artist Kalyn Fay), Where is Justice?: The People’s Rope interactive protest performance art, and នៅពេលដែលកញ្ចក់ខូចអណ្តែត/When Broken Glass Floats performance art with Inverse Performance Festival 2022. She serves as the Vice President of NWA Girl Gang’s board. Simone is proud to continue the Khmer tradition belief that artists are divine vessels for communication between the divine and community and wholeheartedly believes that every person can be the advocate of their own story.
PROJECT:
Justice is what love looks like in public. – Dr. Cornel West
Where is Justice? the question is a koan. Where is Justice? the experience is a thought jam.
Where is Justice? is a fairly simple visual public disruption. At its performance core, I am dressed in a long gold sapot and Khmer belt, with nude colored top. My eyes are blindfolded with the same gold cloth from the sapot. I stand on a 3-foot ladder while holding a hand painted sign that states “Where is Justice?” I stay in silent meditation for anywhere between 1 – 3 hours. It is performed primarily outdoors near spaces that are cultural signifiers of American democratic principles, such as our first amendment rights. Where is Justice? is performed with as little as 24 hours’ notice and without permission.
Each iteration of Where is Justice? has been a different public experience. It causes the viewer to pause and question what is occurring in a random public space, wondering if this performance art is for them, and then they choose to engage. The engagement is either through a pre-arranged prompt or of their own volition. Responses have included statements pinned to my clothing, whispers in my ear, yelling in my face, and being threatened with a motorcycle.
No matter how the public decides to engage, the goal is the same – to create a liminal moment between myself and the audience to rethink their relationship with Justice in public.
