KT Shivak

Artist in Residence2024

Dec 18

she/her

KT Shivak | Artist in Residence 2024 | Photo courtesy of the artist

KT uses puppetry to question why certain items became precious throughout history and to reflect on human insatiability. To her, the puppet is a tool as much as an art object, and a machine as much as a metaphor. Just as puppeteers project onto the puppets they perform through, the puppet can reflect our own humanity back at us: our longing, hunger, violence.

KT is interested in what lies behind the compulsion to dominate nature and categorize some species as “collectable.” In birds and beasts, a series of short performances, she creates kinetic objects drawing on the symbolism of hooves, horns, and feathers. In one installment of birds and beasts, a performer balances on a set of wooden bovine legs attached to stilts by cantering, maintaining constant motion by tentatively shifting weight from front feet to back, teetering between fight and flight. Engaging with this object puts the performer in the place of the collector and collected, hunter and prey, puppet and puppeteer.

Video still featuring KT Shiva, 2021 | Interior with performer holding puppet instrument | Photo courtesy of the artist

The Project

Video still featuring KT Shivak, 2021 | Interior with wooden tabletop puppet, painted panels, masked performer | Photo courtesy of the artist

HCL will support KT in the development of Rhynoceron, a piece featuring a lifesize rhinoceros puppet based on a real animal from history that sparked an obsession both to possess it and to consume its image. The piece is inspired by the paradox of a rhino in Renaissance Europe, stolen from its habitat and transplanted on a sailing ship, to a palace, a combat arena, and eventually sent to its final destination: Vatican City. The rhino was the ultimate prize for collectors then, and has continued to be hunted to the point of extinction ever since.

KT will collaborate with musicians and fellow puppeteers to bring the object to life. Through research and exploration she anticipates being continually surprised by this true story as she investigates the parallel between a past when an animal thought to be myth suddenly appeared, and a future where an animal known to be real suddenly vanishes.

Excerpt from “Tracking,” performance by KT Shivak

About the Artist

KT Shivak is a sculptor, puppet builder, and performer working in Chicago. She received a BFA in sculpture from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where her interests in woodcarving, kinetics, and object performance led her to start working in the puppet theater. Her puppets have appeared in the New York Times, Puppetry International Magazine, the National Puppetry Conference, and at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. As part of the design collective Chicago Puppet Studio she has designed and created puppets for over twenty five theatrical productions in Chicago and abroad. KT has performed at the National Puppetry Conference, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and the Art Institute of Chicago as well as in parades, protests, pageants, cabarets, beaches and barnyards. She has been awarded a Chicago DCASE grant in 2020 and 2023 to develop original work.

For more information, visit ktshivak.com.