Groundbreaking Performance

Skewed Visions specializes in site-specific performance. We create work that embraces site as an endlessly stimulating element of performance. Our performances respond to many aspects of the site and transform the experience of space: its physical characteristics, social context and history, its function and the people who use the site or happen to be there. We believe that any place can, indeed, become a theatrical space. Our mission is to change, with our works, the "landscape of daily life."

In architecture and public art, the term "site specific" refers to artwork creatively tailored for a particular location. We apply that term to performance, creating events which find an intersection between site, text, performers and audience. Our performances respond directly to and draw from the site itself, in both the development of the work and in the performance. Our performances transform expectations and experiences of spaces inviting and challenging the audience "to reflect upon the city."

Our audience is not just those who intend to view our performances but includes those who happen upon the site by accident. Whether intentional or not, they nonetheless inform the meaning of the performance. In this way we invite and challenge our audiences to take part in our re-imagination of performance.

Skewed Visions is also dedicated to expanding notions of theater and performance in the upper mid-west through interdisciplinary collaboration as well as actor and audience education and development. Our creative processes are interdisciplinary and open; roles such as director, writer and actor are fluid. We seek to educate local artists and audiences while collaborating with unique local and internationally acclaimed artists and performers.

Formed in 1996, Skewed Visions is Charles Campbell, Gülgün Kayim and Sean Kelley-Pegg.

Charles Campbell

Co-Founder, Co-Artistic/Managing Director

One of the three co-Founders of Skewed Visions, Charles is an interdisciplinary artist with glasses and patched pants. Interested in work that thinks for itself, he has created multiple pieces including his most recent video Still Life: or when you're away the walls speak your name for Cubicle, Skewed Visions' new series of web casts. His 2009 movement-theater piece He Woke Up In A Strange Place Called Home And Although Looking For Bed He Kept Finding Death Instead was an examination of global violence and domestic acceptance that took audiences through houses and streets of a quiet middle-class neighborhood. Past work includes Jasper Johns: GRAY (2008), Islands of Chekhov for the 2008 Twin Cities Chekhov Festival, Visits With Woyzeck for Open Eye Figure Theatre's 2008 Toy Theatre After Dark series, Theater Piece for Unbranded (2008), Strange Love (performance) (2007) in a coffin factory, A Quiet Ambition (2006) with Cherri Macht in a brewery office, The Car: The Taxi (2004) in a taxi, The House (2004), Pipes (2003), as well as You Are Here (2002) in an observatory and The Bicycle (1999) with architect-sculptor Steve Epley.

He was a finalist for the 2009 Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, and recipient of the 2007 Electric Eyes: New Music and New Media Festival, the 2003 Intermedia Arts Naked Stages performance art commission, the Weisman Art Museum's 2000 Temporary Public Art on Campus commission, and a 2001 Jerome Foundation Building Administrative Capacity grant. He has also been seen on The History Channel, and with Flaneur Productions in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Leeds, England; and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Official education includes a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, study as a part of the Chautauqua Conservatory Theater Company and at the Classic Stage Conservatory in New York City. In 1991 he entered the University of Minnesota where he sneaked an MA in Theater, studied with the Margolis-Brown Company, and wrested a PhD out of some cold dead hands in 1997, where he has since been seen teaching. He has also been studying the theories and practices of Tadeusz Kantor since 1993.

Perhaps more interestingly, he is the stay-at-home parent for two young boys who will soon grow to be rich and support him.

Gülgün Kayim

Co-Founder, Artistic Associate

Gülgün Kayim is an interdisciplinary theater artist, writer and teacher recognized for her work through numerous grants, awards and fellowships including a 2006 Creative Capital Foundation Grant, a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship (2004), Jerome Foundation Travel/study Grant (2002), a Minnesota State Arts Board Theater Fellowship (2001) and two MSAB Artist Assistance Grants (2004/2007) among others. With Skewed Visions she created "The Hidden Room," part of the Days and Nights series (2006), also performed at the Walker Art Center and the International Festival of Movement and Dance, in Yaroslavl, Russia. She created two elements of "The Car", adapted, designed and directed "The House" - both part of "The City Itself Trilogy" (2004); created "The Orange Grove" (2003), "The Eye in the Door part two: Breakfast of Champions" (1998) and "Untitled #1" (1998).

Kayim's work has been recognized and reviewed in local, national and international journals, newspapers and media and regularly appears on critics best of the year lists. Kayim was a 2006 Walker Art Center resident artist, as part of "Open Ended: The Art of Engagement" exhibition featuring installations by Ralph Lemon and Rikritrivanya. She regularly works independently with writers at the Minnesota Playwright's Center, theater practitioners Phillip Zarrilli and Ludmila Ryba -an ensemble member of Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2- and with local dancers and visual artists.

From 1996-2000 Kayim was program coordinator of the Public Art on Campus and the Jerome/Lilly Temporary Public Art Commission programs at the Weisman Art Museum. She served as adjunct curator at Intermedia Arts' Art Inside/Outside Space installation program (2003) and as director of the Minnesota Site-Specific Visible Fringe Festival (2004). She is an affiliate faculty member in the Dept of Theater Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota and holds an MFA in Theater Directing from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Theater Theory and Criticism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA (Hons) in Theater and Film from the University of Middlesex, London. She is the new assistant director for the Bush Artist Program.

Sean Kelley-Pegg

Co-Founder, Co-Artistic/Media Director of Skewed Visions

Sean Kelley-Pegg is a multimedia artist creating works which explore intimacy in the urban environment by mining the relationships between media, performance and site.

In Time For Bed (2006) he created a pair of site-specific projections for an historic office building. The videos explored the sensual relationship between an artist, his puppets, and the very fabric of the building he is trapped in. In The Taxi (2004), he directed a site-specific performance for a Minneapolis taxicab. Participants accompanied the driver as he picked up an unanticipated passenger.

Kelley-Pegg directed Pipes in August, 2004, and an accompanying short film, Fortunately. He received the Intermedia Arts Art Inside/Outside Space installation commission in 2003 for the sound installation Side Walk. He created large video projections for Skewed Visions production The Orange Grove. He managed and produced the 1998 production of Untitled #1 and conceived and produced the second performance-by-mail series Take Out in collaboration with graphic artist Kristin Johnson. Kelley-Pegg directed Skewed Visions first performance, La Traviata, at the Walker Art Centers OUT THERE ARTCORE 9 event in January 1997.

From 1990 to 1992 Kelley-Pegg founded and worked collaboratively with the physical theater company The Conspiracy at Minneapolis venues such as the Hennepin Center for the Arts, Space Space and the Southern Theater. Kelley-Pegg was Assistant Director and Dramaturg to Ping Chong in his 1994 production of Undesirable Elements at the Illusion Theater. Kelley-Pegg studied at the New School University in New York City and holds an M.F.A. in directing from the University of Minnesota.