Art & Life with Paris Hurley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paris Hurley.

Paris, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born and raised in the Sonoran Desert of Tucson. I started playing violin at age 4 and spent my childhood to college years deeply immersed in the classical music world – aka honing an incredibly demanding skill steeped in perfectionism and whiteness through playing the music of deceased white men. I went to college in Seattle, where I began playing the music of living composers and WOC, working with them in real time to craft scores and experiment with extended techniques on the violin to create new sound worlds.

This transformative exposure led me to make large-scale experimental dance theater works with Degenerate Art Ensemble, tour Europe extensively with Balkan gypsy punk band, Kultur Shock, and engage in a rigorous, decade-long improvised music practice. Also, during this time, I reconnected with dance after a ten-year hiatus and began studying experiential body-based practices exploring emotional states, movement qualities, and physical sensations as a choreographic source. The combination of primarily spending my time and energy contributing to the artistic vision of others and navigating the deeply sexist + misogynistic rock world touring with Kultur Shock, led me to create OBJECT AS SUBJECT as a solo project in 2014. Over the following 4 years, I worked with collaborators in Seattle + LA who all greatly contributed to growing the work into what it is today.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I am the creator, composer, front person, and artistic director of OBJECT AS SUBJECT, an LA-based feminist art punk band fueled by raw wailing vocals, a barrage of floor toms, gritty bass riffs, and exacting choreography that shifts from explicit gestural iterations to relentless phrases of wild abandon, featuring Emilia “Pony Sweat” Richeson, Megan Fowler-Hurst, and Patty Schemel.

An irreverent choreographic and sonic ritual, our work is feral and unashamed, often spilling from the stage with calculated bursts of irreligious rites. Our debut album, PERMISSION, is a ceremonial destruction of the myth that women exist in a scarcity-driven hierarchy and must make themselves small for the comfort of others; seen but not heard, useful without agency. Laced with hypnotic drones and lyrics tackling the catcalls of construction workers, the degradation of pussy, and the patriarchal pyramid scheme of Catholicism that turns the sexuality of women into a sin, OAS weaves a punk incantation inviting audiences to turn inward, face yourself, free yourself, save yourself, revel in your joy, feel your sorrow, sweat out your fears, and scream your anger.

This work is about honoring women as loud, sexually empowered, joyous, confrontational, vulnerable, powerful, angry, resilient, and tender beings, fueled by self-granted permission to take up physical, energetic, and sonic space.

With this project, I created the container I was craving and continue to need every day – a vehicle to explore, express, question, respond, deconstruct, invigorate, unlearn, soothe, grieve, build, rebuild, rage, motivate, delight, change, and communicate with myself + others. I hope that this work effects people. I hope that it leaves a mark of some kind – as an instigator, as an agitator, as a mirror, as an example of what’s possible, as a ritual, as an offering, as a personal practice, as empowerment, as an ignitor, as a healing, as a release, or perhaps most importantly, as an inspiration to do or say or make what you want to hear or see or experience – especially if you have a strong reaction of any sort to this work.

How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
I think this is a great question. It’s something I grapple with frequently. I approach art-making as a spiritual endeavor supported by a self-constructed value system that grounds me and the work I make. A foundational aspect of this practice is honoring the process as the thing vs. the object, or end result, or external recognition as the thing. With that metric, when I show up for and tend to the work, I am successful. When I listen to the work, and challenge the work, and bring forth the work, and let all of the ideas come out without judgment, and build the work, and shape the work, and share the work, I have done my job.

For me, this practice takes incredible diligence and dedication as I also have a lot of practice with debilitating doubt, compare + despair, Instagram jealousy, feeling like a fraud, questioning my audacity to take up space with my ideas and spend time tending to them, and the gnawing presence of any number of defeating external measurements of success touted by predominant American culture. I believe in the doing as success, and for me, that practice is crucial to my sustainability as an artist.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
In August 2018, we released our first record, PERMISSION, which can be purchased via Bandcamp or at our live shows as limited-edition white vinyl or a digital download. These are the 2 ways we actually receive the money you invest in this work. The album is also available for streaming on Spotify and can be purchased on all major online music platforms (iTunes, etc.).

We are currently in a winter hibernation working on new material, and will continue performing throughout LA + on our first US tour in 2019. In the meantime, our videos, “REMOVAL” and “WEAPONRY,” are available on YouTube. Our website is a great resource for information about the project. Our Instagram page catalogues + shares much of our process, including show footage + work-in-progress videos, and is the best way to stay in the loop about our upcoming shows and calls for participation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.objectassubject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/object_as_subject/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/objectassubject/
• Other: https://objectassubject.bandcamp.com

Image Credit:
Megan Fowler-Hurst
Margaret Vance
Dana Lynn
m.haight
Preston Thalindroma

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.