Window combines mixed-media art, prop design and music to build a visual and performative persona centered on postcards and a handmade papier-mâché head. She performs at San Francisco's first Sapphic Pride Block Party and used the head as a marketing prop, wearing it while traveling on BART between Oakland and San Francisco. Childhood instability across Chicago, New York and Switzerland and time in the child protective system shaped an acute sensitivity to change and belonging. Postcard Memories explores home as a feeling of ease, safety and the ability to dream freely amid global displacement.
As a kid, Window moved often. She spent the majority of her childhood around Chicago, as well as in New York and Switzerland. Partially raised by her grandparents, Window also spent time in "the system," she says, in reference to child protective services. "One of the few things that kept me connected to my foundation was my father," Window says in a call with KQED. Although he left the family when she was a baby, he'd send her postcards from the places he'd visit, and she'd keep them in a little folder.
"It took me a while to realize that I didn't have a sense of 'home' in the way that a lot of my friends did," says Window. She soon became sensitive to the idea of change, and simultaneously curious about what connects people. The title track on Postcard Memories is inspired by the complicated idea of "home," which takes on an added layer given the increase in displacement and deportation in the U.S. and around the globe. "We're living in a time where so many people, here and abroad, are being displaced by violence, greed and forces beyond our control," she says. Window's experience showed her that home isn't necessarily a place, but a feeling: one of ease, safety and the "ability to dream freely."
Window, who performs this weekend at San Francisco's first Sapphic Pride Block Party, says she made the crafty cranium out of glue, water, newspaper, cardboard, paint and yarn. And she's worn it herself. "I actually went around the whole city," says Window, explaining how she took BART between Oakland and San Francisco, "in that head, with that postcard."
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