Artist Talk + Video Salon

Claiming the Body: John Killacky in Conversation with Megan Voeller

April 18, 2025
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm

A video still with black frames at the top and bottom. In the center are two extreme close-up portraits of a person's lipsticked mouth and another person's eyes with deep eye shadow and eyelashes.
John Killacky, CORPUS (video still), 2025. Photo credit: Courtesy of the artist.

Artist, advocate, and former legislator John Killacky joins writer and curator Megan Voeller for an intimate conversation on embodiment, disability, chronic pain, grief, and activism in his work. Reflecting on his residency at FWM, Killacky will share insights into his creative process, the materials and discoveries that shaped his new work, stillpoint (2024), and the deep collaboration that defined his studio experience. 

The discussion will be framed around screenings of three of Killacky’s video works: Dreaming Awake (2003, 5m 30s), exploring his evolving understanding of disability and intimacy; Stolen Shadows (1995, 10m 25s), reflecting on his activism during the AIDS crisis; and the premiere of CORPUS (2025, 6m 41s), a meditation on creative resistance in today’s political climate.

Through film, storytelling, and dialogue, Claiming the Body invites us to consider how art can reclaim, memorialize, and reimagine the self in the face of transformation.

Please note: there is nudity in some of the videos.

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition, Soft/Cover.

Event Information

April 18, 2025
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm

The Fabric Workshop and Museum
1214 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Free (suggested donation of $5) | RSVP required

RSVP

 

About the Participants

A portrait of Megan Voeller, a white person with long light brown hair and blue glasses. They are wearing a dark, long-sleeve shirt.

Megan Voeller (they/she) is a Philadelphia-based educator, curator and writer whose research focuses on how contemporary artists engage with concepts and practices of health, healing, and medicine—and on the role of the arts in medical training. As Director of Humanities at Thomas Jefferson University since 2016, Megan has worked with students and colleagues to infuse the arts and humanities into health professions education. They direct the medical humanities curriculum at Sidney Kimmel Medical College as well as public and patient-centering initiatives including an Artist-in-Residence program and the Helix Gallery exhibition space. Meagan has also served as a curator at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, and as an arts journalist and critic for newspapers and public television. They are a PhD candidate in art history at Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University.

Learn more at meganvoeller.com

A portrait of John Killacky, an older, bald white man with glasses and a blue collared shirt.
Photo credit: Cassie Wright

John R. Killacky (he/him) served two terms in the Vermont House of Representatives and was executive director of Flynn Center, program officer at San Francisco Foundation, executive director of Yerba Buena Center and curator at Walker Art Center. He has written numerous publications on the arts and written and directed several award-winning short films and videos. These have been screened in festivals, galleries, museums, hospitals, and universities worldwide and are in the collections of numerous libraries and universities. He was an artist-in-residence at Champlain College Art Gallery, co-curating FluxFest (2023) and at The Fabric Workshop and Museum (2024). He co-edited the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories and published a compilation of his writing, because art: commentary, critique, & conversation.

Learn more at johnkillacky.com

Related Exhibitions

A gallery installation photo showing three umbrellas installed at various ends of a triangular armature with other garments and artworks installed on the floor or wall nearby.

Soft/Cover
October 9, 2024 - August 17, 2025