who the fuck is joss (areté) kelvin?
i’m a conceptual artist who creates immersive narrative across multiple mediums: word, music, performance, video, and installation art. i’m a native new yorker who went to chicago to study at northwestern, lived in los angeles long before the east coast exodus, and is now embarking on a year abroad studying for my creative writing masters at manchester university, in the UK. (i’m jumping from one sinking country to another, but what are our options at this point, really?)
my first year after college was spent in chicago where i performed, cast, and assistant directed in the vibrant theater scene, and worked as a video artist in collaboration with contemporary dance companies. upon moving to los angeles i dove into directing a feature film, your friends close, which played at some festivals and is now streaming on amazon, vimeo, + youtube. i also daylighted as a yoga teacher. then i lost a year of my life to pain, until i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and pulled myself out of the daily death of that disease by building new, healthier habits, beginning to express myself more truly, and learning the meaning of the word pace.
the second half of my LA era has been spent devoting myself to music and creating my first concept EP as areté — you can watch my first piece of video art here, shared by logo tv, earmilk, and popdust, and internationally by writers in england, paris, spain, australia, and japan; developing my chops as an immersive experience performer and creator; and penning the story that is the backbone of the multimedia adaptations i’m spending my life creating, all while assisting pioneering media scholar Henry Jenkins at the University of Southern California, and producing events that include the Transforming Hollywood Conference, a collaboration between USC and UCLA that brings industry and academia together to discuss the future of media. and until i leave for the UK, i still teach restorative yoga on sunday nights in silverlake — so come for a visit sometime.
my abilities and interests are varied and the drive of my life is pretty much to defy categorization, but i have a few obsessions, a few angles from which my voice can contribute to the conversation. here’s what you can expect to find here: writing on growth, art, process, play, travel, chronic pain, and the experience of living as someone who identifies as a non-binary human in a woman’s body.
feel like following along with a wild mind? let’s leap.
