Social Practice & Performance
For over two decades I've been creating spaces where people make art together — from community art spaces to interactive installations to intimate candlelit circles. In performance, I've collaborated in a style known as "theater by yes," incorporating everyone's visions into the final production. Many of these moments have come and gone in the excitement of the present, without photos or video to show for them. Below are the glimpses we do have.
Social Practice
The Holding Space
March 2022
at The Playhouse, Arcata, CA
An interactive installation which invited folks passing through the space to participate. See more details on the Textile Art & Installations page.
Good Morning, Creator
Winter 2021
An Online Course
An online course filled with video art, pre-recorded lessons, and weekly Zoom gatherings that taught the concept of The Art of Emotional Design — the foundation of the workshop and session work I offer today.
Good Morning Wedding
September 2020
A Community Collaboration
A beautiful wedding, filled with handmade portals and ritual, from the wedding dress, the wedding tent, to gifts of handmade porcelain cups holding dried flower petals
Lighting Candles
September 2019
at The Sanctuary, Arcata, CA
I facilitated a conversation in a candle-lit room, where people sat in a circle, some in chairs, some on the floor, with an invitation for letting there be lots of silence. I asked the questions "what does love look like to you?" and " tell us about someone you admire". People were welcome to draw while sitting in the circle.
July 2017 - January 2019
Celo, North Carolina
Founded by myself and Tayloranne Finch, with incredible support from our community of close friends and neighbors, HoneyLa was a place where anyone could come to make art anytime. There were many different phases of programming. Pictured here is a moment from a Friday night art party, which occurred weekly throughout HoneyLa's first winter.
Grow Baby Grow
Summer 2014
Trans-America
When I was pregnant with my daughter Ruby Moon, I did a fundraising campaign to buy a car and cross the country, letting people paint on my car when I stopped in different locations.
The Ever-Expanding Heart
February 2014
Local Sprouts, Portland, Maine
As a part of a group show at Local Sprouts Cooperative Cafe in Portland, Maine, I provided materials for people to write love letters to anything, and I often sat in the cafe, sewing them together.
Make Harmony
Summer 2012-Spring 2013
San Francisco, California
A gathering, art-making, and living space born out of my father's warehouse in San Francisco. As his catering business struggled financially, he asked me to help — and Make Harmony is what resulted. Programming included social justice meetings, food justice gatherings, gardening, trauma support groups, jam nights, and large community dinners
1. Her willingness to glow invites others to shine their light.
2. I love her warmth/openness and realness while communicating/being and that it makes me feel safe and free in her presence
3. I love how fun it is to play and giggle with her
4. I love that I've always thought of her as a guiding force (a leader/a facilitator) and I've always believed in her journey/dream
5. It's tough to be a teenager sometimes and I love that when I was a teenager she felt like a magic sanctuary
Hannah’s loving tender reach stretches far and wide -- my teenage years were considerably more whimsical and joyful just knowing that she was near.
-Emily Fairclough
Performances
god - sun - head
Summer Solstice, 2023
Celo, North Carolina
This performance grew out of a collective excitement to honor the summer solstice and to co-create as a group. We used a collective approach to creating the performance, incorporating a range of excitements, including mask-making, robes, singing original songs, fire, flowers, and a menstruating moon.
waking up
April 2018
HoneyLa Community Art Space
Celo, North Carolina
This piece grew out of a desire to express interconnectedness, joyfulness, being able to rely on one's community. We mirrored, metaphorically, seeds' growth into flowering plants. The dance had two showings in April 2018. I danced it with Tayloranne Finch and Jes Hadasah Michaels, and we all, as well as Persephone Kinsey and Shelby Hodge, assisted in choreographing the dance together.
Solar Eclipse
August 2018
South Toe River
Celo, North Carolina
Persephone Kinsey and I did a dance-photoshoot-metaphor-performance on the day of the solar eclipse. Shelby Hodge helped with our make-up and was our photographer.
Lights On
July 2017
Galaxy Arts Gallery
Burnsville, North Carolina
This musical menagerie of puppetry, performers, and incredible original music blended talents of many folks, led in a collaborative-theatre method by Tayloranne Finch, who played Blush the Clown, who climbs a ladder to the moon. I was the puppeteer for the moon.
Burning Brightly
Spring 2017
A HoneyLa Press production. Filmed by Donnie Rex Bishop, song written and performed by Hannah Lee Hoffman, bass by Jared McQueen, creative consultant and lead dancer Tayloranne Finch. All about the love for this sweet little community in Celo, North Carolina.