CLEAVE


2023
in collaboration with undergraduate students of Laurie Jo Reynolds 
at the Unviersity of Illinois at ChicagoOver several weeks, the collective CLEAVE took on the impossible task of becoming “experts” on habits. Each member agreed to help solve another person’s undesirable habit, oscillating between absurdity and sincere care. Together, we approached habits not as behaviors to judge or fix, but as feedback loops and living systems that might reveal something if listened to closely.

The project culminated in CLEAVE’s Habit Helpline, a live Zoom performance in which members joined while walking through their own neighborhoods. Live audience members called in seeking advice, and CLEAVE responded through a structured chain of dialogue: each participant built on the response before them, gradually drifting away from the original problem. The resulting conversation became a mix of earnest, strange, and ordinary reflections on patterned behavior, attention, and movement, foregrounding the shared experience of being bodies shaped by habit.