Patien(t/ce), Performance by Jess Keyes

Friday, April 17 | 6:30 – 8:30 PM

Free Admission

709 N Howard St, Baltimore, MD, 21201
Join Making Space Bmore for Patien(t/ce), an original live performance by Baltimore-based artist and composer Jess Keyes. It is presented as part of the Pharmaco/Liberation exhibition series curated by Juan T. Garcia.

Pharmaco/Liberation is a group exhibition examining healthcare through clinical materials like pills, implants, biometric feedback, and diagnostic imaging. The show treats the body as a site of access, authority, and resistance. Keyes' performance extends this inquiry from the gallery wall into lived, felt experience.

About Patien(t/ce)

Patien(t/ce) makes visible the invisible experience of chronic illness and pain through music, poetry, movement, fiber arts, and lighting design. The work is a system of handmade DIY electronics embedded in wearable knitted, woven, and crocheted objects. These include gloves, socks, a basket, a bib, and a pressure sensor button. They control a Eurorack modular synthesizer.

Keyes sings and speaks vocals that are processed and modulated in real time using biofeedback from wearable sensors (pulse, gyroscope, flex, piezo). The sensors communicate wirelessly to her laptop, which translates body data into control voltage for the synthesizer. The result is a performance where the artist's own physiological signals become musical material.

Patien(t/ce) was developed after Keyes healed from three spine surgeries in two years and began living with several invisible illnesses. The title plays on the doubled meaning of patience (the waiting demanded of patients) and the suffix t/ce, which suggests both tense and tenderness. 2024 Rubys Artist Grant.

About Jess Keyes

Jess Keyes is a Baltimore-based performer and composer exploring interdisciplinary music making, ecstatic energy, and deep communion with audiences. She performs on saxophone, keyboards, and synthesizers. She leads the 12 piece punk brass band Bedlam Brass and is a shape note singer and clawhammer banjo player. Her solo practice brings electro acoustic aleatoric composition together with fiber arts and lighting design. Recent work includes Will the Great Water Remember, a permanent installation at the National Aquarium (2024), and The Gold Night (2023) with the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.

Additional Programming in the Pharmaco/Liberation Series

Saturday, April 18 | 1:00 – 3:00 PM
Harm Reduction & Wound Care Training hosted by Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition. Free, community led training on overdose prevention, naloxone/Narcan administration, and basic wound care. No experience needed.

Saturday, May 9 | 2:00 – 3:30 PM
Panel Discussion with Alfred Lacks Carter Jr. (grandson of Henrietta Lacks) and invited voices. A conversation on medical ethics, patient consent, and healthcare justice.

Thursday, May 14 | 5:00 – 7:30 PM
Bromo Artwalk: Harm Reduction Training (5:00 PM) followed by Patien(t/ce) performance by Jess Keyes (6:30 PM). Free and open to all.

Friday, May 29 | 5:00 – 8:00 PM
Closing Reception. Exhibition catalogue available.

We cannot wait to gather with you.

CONTACT

For inquiries, please contact Juan T. Garcia: [email protected]

EVENT ACCESSIBILITY:

• MSB is on the ground level, and the space is accessible by a ramp.
• Bathrooms are wheelchair accessible and gender neutral
• Masks encouraged

Photo credit: Devon Rowland

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