Spotlight

Allegra Harvard

January 23, 2025

Allegra Harvard (b.1999) is a Chicago-based artist, writer, and curator. Currently, she curates Unda.m.93 with collaborator Parker Davis. Her previous work has been shown at EXPO Chicago, House of Earth, Printed Matter, Weatherproof, and the late SULK CHICAGO. Her first play, Credentis, will premiere on January 31st, 2025.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

My name is Allegra Harvard. My mother’s maiden name was Colledge— pronounced “College” which legally would’ve preceded my last name as a forgivable middle if it weren’t for the latter, “Harvard.” This is unfortunately true. And what’s worse is that my first name is the name of a product that aims to cease allergy symptoms— I was not named after it nor do I have allergies, but people tend to ask— and my last name is the name of a product that functions like a university. Thankfully I have my mother’s primal name as my middle: Kathleen. So starting with introductions, my name is like this: Product, Product category, Replaced Category Substitute, Product. I’m a walking billboard and I’m giving you shit.
Sincerely I thank my mother for my first name— above is a facetious point I’ve stated as an irritant and coincidence I’ve noticed. Moving on now.
I’m from New Hampshire bordering Vermont. I grew up there and came to school in Chicago. I graduated and now I have a BFA. I’ve written a play. I’m co-directing it with Vim Grace Hile and it will premiere on January 31st, 2025.
It’s called Credentis. Before this whole play business, I was making paintings and drawings and running a gallery out of my apartment with my roommate, Parker Davis. It’s titled Unda.m 93.

What is it like for you to live, work, and operate in Chicago?

I’ve gone through periods where life feels a bit Bohemian in Chicago. I read in the bathtub. I write. And listen to music. I go to work. I paint and draw pictures. I go to see pictures in the theatres and museums. I go out. I go to see some music. Sometimes it feels lousy. I like the humor of it all.
Right now, that is not the case. I am co-directing a play. I co-curate a gallery. I need to make a living. I’m writing for a few upcoming projects. It’s all the time work. I play the great bureaucratic game every day. It is creative at least in principle. I’m patiently awaiting my next studio month in solitude. Life feels very full for me in Chicago right now.
Time is precious and I am busy. I like it. It feels good to be here.

Painting 1v.3 | 2022 | Canvas and steel on stretchers | 48 x 56

Can you talk about your upcoming play, Credentis?

Credentis is my first written play. And my first direction. It’s in collaboration with Vim Grace Hile. It follows a series of vignettes from the Tarot. The High Priestess asks each major arcana about their thoughts on Pascal’s Wage.
It is experimental in nature and scenery. Its dialogue is minimal. The script was edited down to the absolutely necessary language to pursue the plot.
I’ll tell you something important about it’s process now:
“The Playwright envisions the play’s world. The director, with the help of many others, transposes it into the theatre’s space for us to see and hear.” — M.S. Barranger
I want to state very importantly now and publicly this— this about the Credentis production team:
Vim Grace Hile: is a very talented director. You ask me about my upcoming play but Vim has as much a hand in its being as I do. And I am glad to work with her. She can breathe life into anything she touches, which makes her an exquisite puppeteer— one of her many talents. She works with performers naturally.
She understands movement deeply. I am grateful to work with her. She helps draw life from these statues that I am interested in.
Daniel Champion: He is an extremely skilled set director and builder. We could not do this without him on our team. His creative power is unmatched. He has a deep understanding of the history of theatre and movies. He has a keen eye and is very thoughtful. He has made some incredible films and will continue to do so.
John Cook: Our music director and conductor. He has a great talent for composition and an understanding of the integrity of music. His direction is integral to our show— and he has nailed it. To mention now, his regular project Godstar Megamax: A band that is worth a good listening to. It is sincere music. It is hard to find a good contemporary band— most are susceptible to the insidious flirting with the normal narcissism.
His band has integrity— it is above this nonsense. All the Godstar boys and other talented up-and-coming Chicago musicians are in our ensemble. John has made a great direction from it all.
Maddy shows: An incredible seamstress and costume designer. She is making the most gorgeous
headpieces that come from my dreams. She has a great talent. I am grateful to have her on our team.

Dakota Norman: Our incredible performance advisor and a true godsend. His expertise in theatre
history/theory has given us an explicit and perfect articulation to aid in the development of bodily
stratagem. He is a true performer and a wise thespian. I am excited to see what he will do next.
A performative mention now for the workshopping of Justin D’Acci. A great talent and an excellent
instructor of the body. An energetic being to the cast. It is fun and exciting to witness— the play becomes play. He has an intellect to share with us and I’ve been quietly calling his procedure with the body as “The D’Acci Method”. It is very interesting. Like Grotowski’s method but within the liminal state of madness and extreme foolishness.

Untitled | 2024 | Ink, watercolor, acrylic on paper | 18 x 24

Can you talk about the curatorial project Unda.m.93 you co-run in your apartment?

I’ll tell you the structure and story of the gallery, followed by my thoughts on curating.
Structure:
It’s a short-run gallery. We have 10 shows before our lease is up. We have an opening and a closing event for every curation. Each show typically runs for 2⁄3 weeks. We operate on Sundays with the exception of one Saturday event that occurred on 11/23 and a Friday event on 12/20. In programming, I was greatly inspired by Chicago’s legendary Corbett vs. Dempsey’s performance events. I felt and still feel that the two circles of performance and visual art should be very close and operate closely. They all have and will continue to affect one another anyway. Especially with writing. So we do performances to close every show.
We don’t have open hours— you have two chances to see the work and only two.
Story:
My roommate and co-curator, Parker Davis, and I started Unda.m.93 impulsively. We were making a lot of drawings in our living room while watching tv. Cartoons and silly things. But they felt good. We wanted to show them and we wanted to show them soon. We had just moved in and we didn’t have many things. It seemed like the right idea at the time to do it at our place. That was our first show, Willfull Awkward Dissonance. We decided we were going to exhibit “low and high” ends of art at our apartment until May 1st, 2025. We were and are most interested in presenting works that foremost the creative act. The name “Unda.m.93” was an act of creation in itself.
Mirrors everywhere I suppose.
Our name came from a replacement of certain letters on a poster we had hanging in the living room when we got the idea to create a gallery. Obviously, it is not a real word. And we tagged on 93 because that number means something to us and a certain number of other people too. It has a function outside of phonetics. It abides by the praxis of concordance in its connotations. Sort of a radio station if you’d like to look at it that way too.
On Curation: Unda.m.93 has brought my attention acutely to a couple of things: Audience, the terrific issue of the press release, and what I will call structural curation. The two former trickle into the latter. Since our programming rotates work we hope to engage but feel we don’t see enough— there are certain aesthetic trends we aim to overcome, and we see the indifference in the work of artists to these trends as true creativity against the masses.
Forging the great and impossible “new.”— and it brings a very different crowd to each show. It’s work we love and that is foremostly creative in principle. The audience becomes mutatable and a possible curation in itself. It’s reflective at most. And I’m always curious to see who’ll come around.
The terrific issue of the press release has irritated me and my certain peers for a while now. Curating shows have been fun to play with their format. I will say that Chicago’s extraordinary Weatherproof— curated by Milo Christie & Sam Dybeck— has handled the terrific issue of the press release very well. A friend of mine sent me the video series, Scorned by Muses, wherein in the first episode the host denounces the press release publicly and very bluntly— which was extremely cathartic for me and those same certain peers. He has an audience and is utilizing it well. I’m enjoying the growing consciousness around the terrific issue of the press release. It’s made me think a lot about lying. To your audience. As an artist and curator. And critic. Which seems like something that is already happening blatantly. We should take the liberty to lie in forte, directly and intentionally to its full extremity.
Hyperbole as act. Lies vs. virtue in art.
Press release statement cont.:: “Unda.m.93 likes to show art that in itself wants nothing to prove, it is simply creative. The gallery puts us in a place to “defend” curation through the press release. Which doesn’t need to happen. So we default to a creative aspect and poetic formulation that is either frustrating and convoluted to read or beautiful and matching or unmatching to the aesthetics of said show. And at times, playing with the acting role of a curator to defend a curation in itself. We are exploring many avenues with the terrific issue of the press release. And it is exciting— and what it demotes the press release to is a simple entity, that is a deterrent to the meaning or sublimation of a curation. It is unnecessary and only a creative component in th curation— it is unnecessary in viewership or to “understand” the work. It is not important, in other words. And we play with the press release since it is a provided hand-me-down structure. We could irradicate the press release entirely, but that wouldn’t be much fun for us.”
This leads to what I mentioned as structural curation (I’m sure there may already be a word for it— so for what it’s worth, I’d like to know more. Email me if you have info/essays allegraharvard@gmail.com.) Where not only the work is curated but the environment, i.e. the press release, flyers/announcements for the show, checklist, sounds, and honestly smells are curated as accordingly as the work itself against contemporary culture. Attempting to alter the emotions of the audience too. Confusion, frustration, love, surprise, excitement, loathing, etc. These are all very exciting. Matching & matching or mismatching and deceiving. It’s fun to play with what is meant to work and what is not supposed to work proposed as it is meant to. I’m making a point to you. We are governing the sovereign space and will choose what is truthful to the legitimacy of a fluent language between each element and what is meant to disrupt— we will choose between lies and virtue in curation. This is not new in established galleries or practicing artists, at least not consciously. So let’s make it conscious if not intentional, instead of repressed. We propose certain conditions if you will….You’re supposed to trust the taste of the institution or gallery, no? Run it like running the masses. And this is what I mean by structural curation. And something that is happening in my mind when I am curating. Making a spectacle or strange argument with the work that feels superfluous. Micro to macro in the living room. It’s meant to confuse.
Some of these statements may make me come off as a real creep— which I’ll accept in full right now, publically.

Untitled | 2024 | Watercolor and ink on paper | 18 x 24

Do you think projects like these are essential in regards to engaging the arts community? Is doing this in Chicago different from other places?

Chicago is tight-knit in a way. It feels insular. This isn’t bad. It just means when you forge a creative space that either invites people or directs them in some way, it affects the scene. It feels simple. I’ve noticed a lot of apartment galleries or project spaces that began in the last 6 months alone. Unda.m.93 included. And this is good. The more the merrier. Places for people to go etc. Liberatory spaces. An accessible front. Every generation has them.
On experimental theatre/performance in Chicago: I think there’s a real need for in-person performance art/situations/”happenings’/plays/events/shows/what have you— which feels obvious. And Chicago has a very fertile ground for these kinds of things. Since this whole play started, people who hang out in the grapevine have approached me with their play scripts, writing, music, various performative skills or interests… People are intrigued and interested in playing with this kind of work. And feel that it’s an avenue to explore their practices. Since Chicago is unlike the financial beast of New York City, it offers a pace and availability to work with little to no funding for projects like this. At this moment it would feel a little more than impossible for me and my co-director and amazing team to attempt this production in NYC. We are using a community space, open to the occasion— and people are happy to volunteer and have the time to do so. Things like that.

At the movies | 2023 | Charcoal and ink on canvas | 44 x 44

What kinds of things are influencing your work right now?

Gertrude Stein and Apollinaire have continuously affected me in writing. I am greatly affected by the paintings of Ellen Berkenblit. The video work of Ericka Beckman. I’ve been a fan of Robert Ashley and Joan Jonas for years and they just sort of exist in the back of my mind. Movies. Plays. I like Peter Brotzman and Joe McPhee. I like to draw and listen to them. I like Dave Hickey. His writing is accessible and I like that. I think we need more of it, and he is great at the full portraits of artwork. A real rock and roller.
I also like Boris Groys, which may be obvious to some. Maybe not. Who knows or cares.

What are some other recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?

I’ve got a few ideas for some theatrical pieces moving forward. Once the play premieres I am going to paint and draw for a while as a repose. Then I’ll do something theatrical again. I have the next production in mind. I’m talking to people about it. It’s secret for now. What I’ll say about it is that I am interested in the stage as a space for art criticism.

Untitled | 2024 | Watercolor and ink on paper | 18 x 24

Do you consider collaboration an important part of your practice? Do you think this is true for every practicing artist?

My work is increasingly involving people. So yes. Most obviously with the performance and curations. I will take breaks in between future productions to paint or draw etc. I don’t want to run a gallery again— it’s a project. But I’m interested in guest curating. There will be more isolated moments in the studio again— which I look forward to— but I really do enjoy working with others. A lot.
A note on if it’s true for every practicing artist: Firstly, there’s a difference between practicing artists and artists.
Regardless, all practicing artists collaborate with someone in some way. Say you paint and you want to show your paintings in a gallery. You’d then work with a gallerist and god forbid a dealer. That seems like collaboration. Even in an administrative way. Or, say you’re a big-shot artist too. You’d have studio assistants. That’s trusting someone else with your work— I’d consider that collaborative. I don’t think collaboration is uncommon and the older I get the more it seems necessary if not constant.

Are you afraid of the dark?

In the woods. New Hampshire bordering Vermont. It is peculiar. It started in high school. I was walking my dog around the house and saw a deer. It seemed horrifying in the dark.
The woods in New England are different from West Coast forests— there is a difference between forests and woods.
Not just in its ecology. New England is a bit eerie. I’ve had strange experiences in the woods, sometimes during the day or early morning. I will tell you now a story of strangeness in New Hampshire I experienced for the novelty of it all.

Early one morning I woke up to walk my dog in the neighbor’s field. It wasn’t exactly allowed to go there but I did it anyway. My dog’s name is Otis. He is a beagle and likes to bark at things. It can be quite annoying.
So we were walking in that field. And I saw a deer far out. Otis didn’t bark. Or lurch. It was peculiar. I saw the deer start to approach. It had large antlers. I began to walk away. I looked back every ten steps or so.
The deer was following us. Now and then I would look back and wait for the deer. The deer approached closer every time. It got about 10 feet away from us before I decided it was best to leave entirely. And my dog didn’t bark once. This is strange. Looking back it feels strange. And less enchanting. More frightening.

I am also afraid of dark basements. And black holes— the complete and horrifying external and endless darkness.
Space is scary too now to think of it. And heights. Space is far from the ground.

Graph 1v.1 | 2022 | Canvas and foam on stretchers | 60 x 80

Do you have an idea of what you want a viewer or participator to walk away with after engaging with any aspect of your practice? Does this matter?

I’m not sure. It’s not my priority to be transparent. That work is for critics. And I firmly believe this. Let the critic direct the audience to meaning, not the artist. This isn’t a new or radical idea either. It’s their job. The artist has their own reasons for doing anything at all. This translation is not always seamless and it doesn’t have to be. I could intend anything toward an audience but truthfully, the creative act is more interesting to me than anything else. And I will continue to focus on that. If a critic or audience member can pick up what I’m putting down when I present something— that’s a candy bar for them.

Can you share one of the best or worst reactions you have gotten as a result of your work?

I have one in mind which is both. Only because it was explicative and brash and emotional and surprising and funny and exciting. In undergrad, a girl looked at a piece I made during critique— pointed at it with both hands— and said, “This makes me angry.” And she was pissed. It was a minimal form I made from paper. I thought she was a real weasel for that.

What are some films or other media that you can’t stop thinking about right now?

The great, Little Murders is continuously on my mind. A fantastic monologue over a tape recorder about 3⁄4 of the way through. And the climax of the play-transcribed movie feels very personal.
Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H*, “The Pro’s From Dover” scene. Reminds me of my late father and his best friend.
They used to shoot squirrels out of their Dartmouth dorm room windows when they were bored. It was the 60s.
Seems like something Hawkeye and Trapper John would do. And plainly, I really like the term, “The Pro’s From Dover.” I think about it a lot.
Frederico Fellini’s Casanova. Faith Hubley’s The Tender Game. Increasingly more and more over time, I think about Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder.) I think about Malina, starring Isabelle Hupert. While directing this play I’ve thought a lot about Kenneth Anger, Ken Russell, Goddard, Jacques Rivette, and George Kuchar. Peter Brooke at times. I like the stories of Brecht’s early rehearsals in his famous productions. The aforementioned Jonas and Beckman are alongside.
The many renditions of Tristan und Isolde (or Tristan et Iseult 1972 specifically.) Wagner’s ending opus of Tristan und Isolde, “Libestod” changed music forever and I listen to it a lot knowing that. It can be very emotional.
Sometimes not at all. Just beautiful. During an Unda.m.93 opening I played the entire score— it was a fixation at that time— which was recently. And it pursued a dissonance in the room that felt important. It was my favorite show we have done. Our working with internet outsider artists, Andy Heck Boyd and Kasper Meltedhair. They make fabulous drawings/printings/comics/videos.
The final scene of Le Pont Du Nord by Jacques Rivette.
Sometimes the original Karate Kid.

Interior landscape 2 | 2022 | Oil on canvas | 35 x 35

Do you have a specific process when engaging in creating or conceptualizing?

Studio practice: It’s always changing. If I could identify one continuum, my work orbits taste and things that I like or that bother me. I like to reorganize them— refashion the procedure and structures of things. I like puzzles and shapes. Everything follows or disembowels some kind of rule or structure.
I’ll tell you about some works in the past years and their cyclical nature in process: I was painting landscapes for a while and it went like this. Very bodily and quiet. Dowsing with the paintbrush and such. Exploring similar methods from early abstract expressionism— a hark to the spiritualist making that heralded subconscious work. It was based around energy transfer and all that. It interests me and the task was to understand the procedure and paint the invisible landscape.
When that work concluded (I felt if I were to make more of the landscapes they would become something else) I swung completely to an empirical or a “conceptual” approach. No emotional context, just observations. “Structures vs. stricture” was something that became very interesting to me. And this is when it consciously became a continuum. The Reorganization of things. It made for some pretty interesting paintings and drawings. It was calculated. I started using surface as composition and mark making. Using canvas as a mark maker in itself. A wink to the revolution of painting in the 70s as a reaction against sculptural minimalism was in my mind. Making these canvas paintings felt like a board game.
And I like games and puzzles I said. Shapes and lines and colors feel that way so I mix them around. I’ll have Liam attach a photo of one of the drawings I made in January 2024 somewhere around this paragraph so you can get the idea. I was substituting the letters of the alphabet with numbers. I made a handful and moved on.
A certain progression through my structural discovery of surface: After I got bored of the canvas without an image, reflections and cartoons and psychology and media figures became the subject. It was loose in gesture but the surface was rigid and it was difficult and fun to make. And became emotional at some point.
And that is where I left my studio practice before the play came along. Periodically I draw and paint nice little pictures. But not often. I’m excited for my return to the studio in solitude after the closing of this Credentis.
RE: presently and towards the main stake of my creative energy: Unda.m. 93: the curatorial became conceptual and now I’m interested in structures and puzzles and mirrors again but most seriously in the abilities of space and curation.
How I am thinking about the performance of Credentis: Theatre and actors implicate history as an act of movement, specifically expression through the body. In Credentis, I want the actors to function like
statues/sculptures/paintings/machines. And this is taboo to the tradition of theatrical performance— rightfully so.
Rigid and posed. I don’t want them to move or I want them to do it very slowly. And there are ways to do this effectively. Drawing the stillness from the body. “The spine of Credentis is posture and pace,” I say to the cast. Less is more etc. Reorganizing again.

Untitled | 2024 | Ink, watercolor, acrylic on paper | 18 x 24

If you could go back in time and experience one day in history, which day would that be?

I can’t decide so I’ll tell you my top picks. I’d like to experience the exact moment where I could look out my window and see Paul Revere’s famous,“The British are coming!”
Or to see Archimedes naked and running around the streets yelling “Eureka!” when he figured out m/v=d in the bathtub. Witnessing spectacles. Or, an evening at Gertrude Stein’s famous atelier with the rest of the modernists. I also want to see the premiere of Einstein at the Beach, 1975 at Opera Grand Avignon, France. And in theory, bring my mother and her mother and my grandma on the other side. And other theoretical grandmas. Maybe a lady’s night at the theatre with my many grandmothers, some related and others imposed.

What room do you spend the most time in?

My room but only by principle of sleep. Otherwise the horrible bus.

 

Artist portrait by Gabriel McGee

 

Interview conducted and edited by Liam Owings