Gabriel Chalfin-Piney: The Power of Vulnerability

On a chilly spring day earlier this year, I received a notification from my friend Julia, our first guest on the Infinite Search. The show had just launched a couple of hours prior, and people were reaching out to show their support. Julia was excited to introduce me to a friend who was curious to know more.

The idea for the infinite search was taking root—a space for personal storytelling and co-creation of meaning. Conversations of the human kind. Julia introduced me to Gabriel, and in our first meeting, I saw how they abide by their own set of rules, customs, and beliefs. A ritual of making in community as a way forward. We instantly connected over similarities in our own stories and their vulnerability was beautifully human, courageous, and inspiring.

Gabriel Chalfin-Piney is a performance artist and organizer, with a background in cohort creation and public programming. They are interested in making by way of olfactory, gustatory, and tactile experiments, prompting audience members to participate as co-creators. Failure, co-learning and storytelling are central to the projects that they participate in. Gabriel has held positions at the Lunder Institute for American Art, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Vassar College’s Powerhouse Theater. They have performed at the Dorsky Museum, Panoply Performance Lab, Chicago Artists Coalition, High Concept Labs, Grace Exhibition Space, and the Whitney Museum of Art.

Gabriel holds an MA in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They are currently engaged with Urban Gateways as the Senior Instructional Program Manager, and they are the founder of Care-Full Histories, an Oral History Archiving, Food + Performance Residency, which I’m excited to talk to them about today.

To learn more about Gabriel and their work, visit:

Website: https://www.chalfinpiney.com/

Instagram: @citrus.history