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JESSA CARTA*

  1. Rhizomatic Repair(2023)

  2. Trash & Treasure(2023)

  3. Exchange Rate(2023)

  5. Veriditas(2021)

  6. Night Blindness(2021)

  7. Twin Origin(2022)

  8. Breath Type(2021)

  9. Dead Reckoning(2018)

  10. LAND LAND(2017-present)

  11. Lifespan Of A Memory(2019)

  12. Resting Eye Monument(2016)

  13. Charcoal Gestures(2020)

  14. Because I Was Standing(2017)

  15. Continuous Connected(2016)

  16. LOVECITYLOVE(2013-2016)

  17. Things People Say


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Jessa Carta is an omnidisciplinary artist and creative project consultant. She is compelled towards rhizomatic frameworks, pattern literacy and the healing power of ritual containers. Jessa is attuned to the ineffable wiggliness of nature and its harmonious systems/structures in equal measure.

Jessa’s work tracks the leading lines of value, identity and performativity and plays host and witness to the cycles of life <> death <> life present in our ecosystems and egosystems.

Jessa is a deep empath who opens herself to the collective unconscious and vows to give it expression. Her fierce belief in understanding and respecting authentic truths has led her down a path of seismic connections. What she creates has been described as possessing“a rare mythic perspective”, “assertions of feminine power” and Jessa herself has been referred to as “an underworld intermediary”.

Jessa is currently the prime mover of arts-based research project LAND LAND. Jessa is a founding member of the Seattle-based experimental collective LOVECITYLOVE - a diverse, accessible, and inclusive secular art church. Her education and research has included  certifications as a natural builder, regenerative earth steward and solidarity economist. 

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*Jessa’s patrilineal last name is Carter which means messenger, mail carrier or a person who carts goods. In a move towards fewer belongings and more belonging, less doing and more being, Carta replaces “the messenger” for the message itself from the Latin “paper” “map”.

What kind of experience is required to
re-enchant humanity into a reciprocal relationship with water?



If disenchantment is to de-god the natural world then re-enchanting humanity into our inextricably linked fate with water may require the secular combination of two methods prevalently used to access wonder and the divine : baptism and music

“The subatomic particles we see in nature, the quarks, the electrons, are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string. …Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write on vibrating strings…Chemistry is nothing  but the melodies you can play on interacting vibrating strings…The universe is a symphony of vibrating strings. We are nothing but membranes through which cosmic music is played out on vibrating strings.” -Michio Kaku

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” –  Hermann Hesse”

To re-enchant is to chant (sing or say) in repetition, to synchronize rhythmically, to become entranced, to merge voices, and in this case, to be immersed in sound current and water current both, creating a chemically bonded biophysical vow to engage in social and environmental justice.

Based on the idea of *pleasure activism, WAVING DAYS is a series of day long retreats to take place at the undevleopments of the Metabolic Studio.


Part 1. HYDROSONIC IMMERSION 

Participants are invited to sauna, soak, and plunge in rain water while receiving and generating live sound performance to catalyze potent processes in the body such as improved circulation and cardiovascular function, detoxification, inflammation reduction, increased cellular regeneration and the production of socially bonding chemicals like oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins.


Part 2. KNOWLEDGE SHARE

A waterkeeper, artist or activist guides participants through an overview of the hydrosphere from global to local, ending with the bending the river tour.


Soaking and sounding are both age-old practices for creating & fortifying community glue, it seems reasonable to conclude that combining them would multiply their impacts and not a stretch to suggest that such activities which allow for fully inhabiting corporeal and inner landscapes would be a prerequisite for the eventual interfacing with intensely challenging problems that call for a highly logical problem solving orientation.


The method of priming an individual or group to deeply absorb information or experiences is a practice employed across time around the globe with intentions that span the gamut from the extremely coercive by well established mega powers like militaries and the catholic church to the extremely critical by iconoclastic agitators like performance artist Marina Abrovick.


“When one’s thoughts are released to roam through the lonely spaces of the universe, it’s not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil.” - Rachel Carson, Women’s Home Companion]


Part 3. SKILL SHARE

Participants are offered training, support contacts and a stipend for water retention & stewardship in their communities. Documentation of progress towards the implementation of their site specific systems allows for future access to the Metabolic Studio bathhouse & recording studio, providing people with sustained care, reanimating outlets and incentive to see their efforts through to fruition.


Part 4. RECORD OF WONDER

Participants receive a facilitated recording session where spoken reflections on the day, pieces of newly learned songs, or spontaneously emergent sounds become recorded artifacts and sonic talismans.


If the Golden Record was made as a love letter from earth to the cosmos, Record Of Wonder will be made as a love letter to water from the anthropocene. This compilation of sounds will be played in public spaces throughout Los Angeles. Whenever possible sound systems will be housed in the triangle slabs of concrete jacket removed from the LA River, the 3 points representing the union of water bodies, human bodies and sound current. Other more inconspicuous and unhoused roving sound installations will leak subtly into unexpected places throughout the city, a river of voices whispering of another possible reality.



—--------------Timeline—---------------


March - May 2024
Research & Development


June - Aug 2024
Build Out


Sept - Nov 2024
Waving Days is Active


Dec-February 2024
Record of Wonder is completed and Public Works are installed.