Portfolio: Explorations of Poetics

By Katarina Countiss, 11/11/2024

Biography

I am an interdisciplinary arts practitioner and independent researcher based in Oakland, California. I specialize in poetics of play, bricolage performance, and the dialogue between art practice and ideology.

Objective

To explore and cultivate creativity as a generative act, inspired by Georges Perec’s approach to structure and observation. My goal is to foster an understanding of creativity not as a solitary endeavor but as a dynamic, generative process that unfolds through constraints, patterns, and unexpected connections. By embracing both the ordinary and the extraordinary, I seek to create work that reveals the hidden potential in everyday life, encouraging others to engage with creativity as an evolving, transformative practice that sparks new insights and possibilities.

Portfolio Statement (250-500 words)

My work as an artist, performer, and designer is driven by a passion for exploration, connection, and transformation. With a focus on collaborative and improvisational processes, I create projects that bridge the ordinary and the extraordinary, inviting audiences and participants into experiences that blur the boundaries between the everyday and the poetic. My practice spans performance art, theater, zine creation, and costume design, where each medium becomes a site for generating meaning, questioning identity, and engaging with the world through both structured and spontaneous acts of creation.

The projects within this portfolio represent my commitment to creating immersive, site-specific experiences that invite reflection on personal and collective narratives. Whether in the experimental choreography of Wetside of the Lake, the surreal, ritualistic performance in Snood Wallow, or the cyclical zine production of Kat’s Zine Club, each work is rooted in a belief that creativity is a generative act, shaped by collaboration, play, and presence. My costume designs and performance documentation reflect my deep interest in texture, movement, and the embodiment of character.

At the core of my practice is a commitment to fostering connections—both within the creative process and with broader audiences—through shared experiences that are at once intimate and expansive. I believe in the transformative power of art to create spaces for dialogue, understanding, and emotional resonance, and I am driven by a desire to continue evolving and collaborating within this ever-changing landscape.

Art Projects

Costume Exploration

Year: 2022–2024

Medium: Project-based work

Size: Life-size costumes

Brief Description: Ongoing practice of costume design, exploring identity, transformation, and expression.

I am inspired by fashion and anti-fashion. Since I was very young, I have been hypnotized by fashion magazines and America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway. Who is this girl and what is she wearing? The idea of wearing an outfit that can make you more confident or someone else or confident because you are someone else, ritual garb. Queen Amidala’s costuming in Star Wars Episode 1 dazzled me. They were so regal and of a different place. I think even then I aspired to a world of fantasy and fiction that pulled from multiple sources so they wouldn’t code as being from any one traidtion on Earth.

As the sole designer, fabricator, model, and stylist, I created life-size costumes using fiber manipulation techniques, hand sewing, and crochet. Collaborating with models, I explored themes of identity and transformation, producing a series that engages audiences in these concepts. Documented through photography and shared on Instagram, this ongoing project highlights the intersection of design, construction, and storytelling in costume work.

Kat’s Zine Club

Year: 2017–2024

Medium: 32-page poetry zine

Size: 8.5” by 5.5”

Brief Description: A monthly zine-making production, focusing on self-expression.

My local art shop in Bremerton when I was 14 had a zine exchange and I was inspired. I made the zine about a crush I had and a lot of gothic art references. I had a resurgence in my zine life when I met someone at work who was into zines in 2017. I decided to make a zine about whatever I wanted. In 2021, I started making them about my life and made a page a day after my morning pages. When I look at them, I think about William Blake, the interplay between drawing and text. It’s like authentic movement, I try to embody my thoughts how they come and use symbols to explore the inner landscape, a boat for the feeling of a journey I’m on, a map for my sense of wanting to think and analyze about where I am and where I want to go.

Founder, writer, and distributor of a process-oriented zine, I created a page daily, assembling them monthly into a cohesive zine. The content reflects journaling themes, self-discovery, and readings in psychology, philosophy, and other interests. This practice incorporated simple binding techniques, community engagement through Patreon, and a consistent analog art process. The result is a platform for self-expression, fostering a zine-making community and promoting daily creative discipline.

Pluot Season

Year: 2021

Medium: Performance

Size: 45 minutes

Brief Description: An exploration of relation after a communal shift from the pandemic.

I was starting to think about going to grad school and thought if I could do anything I would want to do experimental costume design. I wanted an opportunity to costume a show and I figured no one was going to hire me, but I could hire myself, so I produced a backyard show. My reference points were Tibetan parades and festive and ritualistic atmosphere.

As the conceptual developer, curator, and producer, I created and performed Pluot Season, a backyard play exploring post-pandemic relationships. Collaborating with a local director and six actors, I co-produced the project, designing mood boards, costumes, and the devised theatre process. I led fundraising efforts, created a commemorative zine and program, and managed production logistics. This project fostered creative exploration, strengthened community ties, and provided a unique audience experience, supported by lasting commemorative materials.

Potato Topos

Year: 2022

Medium: Performance

Size: 60 minutes

Brief Description: An artistic exploration of the humble potato, connecting it to topographies and terrain.

Devised Theater practices, we dreamed up things we wanted to do on stage. A collaborator was going through some grief and imagined a tableau where he is revealed under a pile of billowing snow. That snow turned to grapes which turned to potatoes and once we got to potatoes, things sprouted. One of my favorite pieces of this show is called Crystal Mountain. I made a “group shroud” out of diaphanous material sewed into triangle pieces and in the beginning of the show, the movers shift around under this and it undulates. It’s hard to tell whether there’s a head or an arm or a hip coming through. The movers reported how this was helpful to establish connection and intimacy to ground the connection between them.

I conceptualized, produced, performed, and collaborated on Potato Topos, a piece exploring the symbolic connection between potatoes and the earth. As the liaison for a fringe festival, I managed marketing, budgeting, grant writing, and promotional materials, including a lobby poster and program. The performance, which included devised theater techniques, a work-in-progress show with a talkback, and custom costumes, engaged audiences in thought-provoking dialogue and contributed to the local arts community.

Protobotany

Year: 2023

Medium: Performance

Size: 60 minutes

Brief Description: A study of collective improvisation with props.

In our experimentation with Authentic Movement, I wanted to expand the possibilities with different roles: lighting, music, movement, and propwork. I came up with this idea of Authentic Bringing. The idea that we can bring whatever we want to the show and address it in the space as part of the performance and discover things there in front of the audience and in the space. The result was inventive and we all had stories about moments that were unexpected synchronicities as we interacted with our unique offerings.

As the conceptualizer, producer, performer, and collaborator, I developed a collective improvisation with props for Protobotany. Acting as the venue liaison, I managed logistics, ticketing, and communication while performing and collaborating with the ensemble. The piece introduced an experimental performance style that highlighted collective creativity, providing audiences with an immersive experience and contributing to the local arts scene.

Psychobotany

Year: 2017-2023

Medium: Performance

Size: 45 minutes

Brief Description: A ritual of collaborative authentic movement, focusing on plant consciousness.

I accidentally misread a sign that said “Making your plant medicine.” I thought it said “Making Your Plants Meditate. This was inspiring to me and I iterated until it became psychobotany. Working with David Samas on an original score about the seasons, this piece is 45 minutes long. Each season happens, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and back to Winter. The movers use improvisational techniques from Authentic Movement practice in a performative way and have some contact and respond to the sound, lights, and each other. I have my analog overhead projector and visual props and I respond as well creating a unique environment relating to the sense of the stories unfolding on stage. This is a show that we’ve remounted eight times and have had different musicians and movers.

For Psychobotany, I conceptualized, produced, performed, and collaborated on a ritual performance exploring plant consciousness and human connection through authentic movement. I designed and executed live lighting using an analog overhead projector, coordinated musicians and a commissioned composer, and developed promotional materials. Staged multiple times, including at a fringe festival, this evolving piece enriched the local arts community and offered audiences a sensory and thought-provoking experience.

Snood Wallow

Year: 2023

Medium: Video

Size: 5 minutes

Brief Description: A sensual site-specific video made at an arts residency in Poland.

This work is a result of a workshop at the Palace Residency in Poland. I learned how to crochet at a workshop at the residency and I wanted to make a video for the Redefining Porn by Making Porn Workshop. I ended up making two big sacks to move around in and my collaborator cinematographer Jakub and I found beautiful locations around the Palace to shoot. My collaborator Kevin made the soundtrack on site during the residency as well. It felt very resonant and sensitive to our personalities and ways of working together, textured and immersed in the quiet countryside.

As the director, creator, performer, and costume designer, I produced Snood Wallow, a site-specific video about sensuality and self-reflection during an arts residency in Poland. Collaborating with a composer and cinematographer, I performed in a costume I designed and crafted on-site. By integrating multiple projects at the residency, this video fostered artistic dialogue and produced a work that showcases the synergy of site-specific art and multimedia storytelling.

Wetside of the Lake

Year: 2024

Medium: Performance

Size: 60 minutes

Brief Description: A set of vignettes about wetness and dryness using devised theatre techniques.

Something that we had been toying with was water theater. My collaborator Annikah wanted to bath someone in her greenhouse as a character. We created a series of vignettes inspired by themes of wetness and dryness and generated stories from our everyday life and from the imagined life of citizens of the Wetside of the Lake, a society where wet is best. This show was technically challenging with the number of props and materials. It was the first show that I’ve done with live water which felt engaging for both performer and audience. The inflatable tub was an impressive and functional stage piece that collected liquid throughout the show and then its remnants was poured into a vial as a visceral souvenir of our antics.

In Wetside of the Lake, I conceptualized, produced, performed, and collaborated to develop a series of devised theatre vignettes exploring wetness and dryness. As the SFIAF festival liaison, I handled logistics, marketing, budgeting, and promotional materials. The process included two on-site creative retreats, costume design, and directing the ensemble. This project provided a sensory audience experience, contributed to the festival’s artistic offerings, and left a legacy through impactful promotional content and programs.