The LIVE premiere and performance of Spinning Home Movies #18: A Pocket Universe, featuring an all-new mix of vintage home movie footage from the South Side Home Movie Project, scored and performed by rapper, poet, actor, teaching artist, and author Mykele Deville, accompanied by interdisciplinary multimedia artist, composer and performer [jef]Frey Michael Austin.

A Pocket Universe, the first live version of Spinning Home Movies, is a brief exploration of resilience, dreaming, and the innumerable codes that anchor our lives. Created through a 4-month residency with the South Side Home Movie Project, Mykele’s mix features films from the Jean Patton, Alsup Smith, Ellis McClelland, David D. and Margaret T. Pitts, Leroy Roberson, Ellis McClelland, Roberts Family, O’Neal Family and Ramon Williams Collections.

Spinning Home Movies is produced and presented by Arts + Public Life (APL) and South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), with support from the American Council of Learned Societies.


Artist image credits: zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal (Mykele); Ash Dye ([jef]Frey)

Artist bios:
Mykele Deville is a rapper, poet, actor, teaching artist, and author from the west side of Chicago. His solo hip-hop and poetic recordings include Maintain (2019), Peace, Fam (2017), Each One Teach One (2016), and Super Predator (2016). He has performed on stages across Chicago and led workshops on hip-hop and identity. His work has been profiled in Billboard, Afropunk, Flood Mag, Bandcamp, Noisey, OK Player, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, The Reader, Consequence of Sound, Vocalo radio, and NPR radio.

He received a BFA in Performance from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a Mentor and company member for The Yard Theater Company, working with youth. He is also a founding collective member of Growing Concerns Poetry Collective. They released their inaugural album WE HERE: Thank You For Noticing (2017) and a joint book of poetry entitled Five Fifths, published by Candor Arts.

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[jef]Frey Michael Austin is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist, composer and performer based in Chicago. Their visual artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and they have performed in such spaces as The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, The Art Institute of Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Cultural Center and The Smart Museum of Art.

Additionally, Frey designs and builds altarpieces for both private and public spaces of worship, most recently completing a new central bema for the historic KAM Isaiah Reform synagogue of Hyde Park. They also compose and produce music for film and for the collaborative, multidisciplinary performance projects GABE, Growing Concerns Poetry Collective and Daisy Days.