Odette Stout’s multimedia club performances and experimental costumes blossom from Chicago underground nightlife. Their runway events, performances and digital media work synthesize fashion, mixed-reality installation, movement, drag and poetry. Stout transforms themself and collaborators into otherworldly living artworks, telling stories from spaces where self-creation is a survival art practice. Recent work frames the creation of a persona, specifically trans becoming, as a community construction. It also explores how technology mediates this identity formation. What can temporary self-governing spaces teach us about conflict resolution and transformative justice? This is shorthand for how self and other can be re-understood where fantasy intersects with living need and identity creation. Underground spaces develop social technologies that attempt to resolve these, and Stout's work traces the formation and dissolution of chosen families and scenes of cultural production from which emerge new possibilities for how a self can be constructed, some of which blossom into the mainstream.
Stout maintains Mall Kiosk at the End of the World, an ongoing studio library of their costumes, free to local performers. They nest secret texts into the physical garments through augmented reality (AR) portals, which are opened in performance by symbolic gestures (e.g. a model reaching the end of a runway, or receiving a tattoo). These poems live secretly in their garment shells, like a soul, mostly unseen but loving each wearer through their various lives, waiting to be unleashed by precise, dreamy intermedia performances. The garments feature in plays and musicals, workshops for youth and adults, go on tour with drag and performance artists, and have appeared in hundreds of live events as they gradually degrade and disappear into underground lore.
Exhibitions and performances include The Sculpture Center, Currents New Media, Co-Prosperity, Ars Electronica, Kinsey Institute, and Vox Populi. Some partners who have supported their work are 3Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chicago Artists Coalition, ACRE and Southern Graphics Council International. Some places they have shared workshops are MOCA Cleveland, The Rock Hall of Fame, Ps1 Close House, and Podlasie Club. They like to see things get done and can be found sewing, stoning, editing videos and flyers, designing websites, hosting parties and background dancing in projects near and far. They're a notably bad cook, teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and are currently developing their first film. Stout has been credited as the first poet to present at Poetry Foundation with their ass out.
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000.dette[at]proton.me
Some Solo / Duo Exhibitions
2025
Infinity Mirror (with Ále Campos) | Vox Populi, Philadelphia USA
Cute/Accelerations | The Other Art Fair, Chicago USA
Difference’s Rainbow (with Grace Grace Grace) | Watershed Art & Ecology, Chicago USA
2024
The Dream Continues | The Sculpture Center, Cleveland USA
2023
Unidentified and Flying (with Jessica Tucker) | Roots and Culture, Chicago USA
2022
Local Legend | Co-Prosperity, Chicago USA
ONE FATE STUPID (with Brittany Sowacke) | Comfort Station, Chicago USA
Hurtling Thru Rosebushes Poem | Bug World, New Art City (online)
2017
We Those People (with Zachary Carlisle Davidson) | Schrott Center, Butler University, Indianapolis USA
2016
Magical Boys of the Midwest | Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland OR USA
2014
Faux Peep | Grunwald Gallery, Bloomington IN USA
Some Group Exhibitions
2026
Moonlight Fuel | ALMANAC, Chicago USA
2025
EXSANGUINATION | Hairpin Arts Center, Chicago USA
Body of Noise | Elastic Arts, Chicago USA
Fieraz | Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, Querétaro MX
The Capsule | Foro Mictlan, Ciudad de Mexico MX
How to See In the Dark | Co-Prosperity, Chicago, USA
Powertripping | Poetry Foundation, Chicago USA
Transvengeance | Podlasie Club, Chicago USA
2024
Quicker Than A Ray of Light, Then Gone | Public Space One, Iowa City IA USA
Sitios de Maniobras y Otras Brechas | Nonation, Chicago USA
Maisons Fragiles | Ruschwoman, Chicago USA
Chicago Underground Film Festival | Chicago USA
unstuck | SITE/less Chicago USA
2023
The Art of Pride | Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago USA
Travelogues | Elastic Arts, Chicago USA
Z Space | Congruent Space, Chicago USA
2021
Ground Floor | Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago USA
Our Diverse World | Tsinghua University, Beijing
SOPHIEFEST | online
2020
[Dis]position | Ars Electronica 2020 (online)
Kinomural | Wroclaw, Poland
In Even The Oldest Utopia There Is a Song Too Short To Sing | UGLY, Chicago USA
2019
Handmade By Robots | Salme Harju Steinberg, Northwestern Illinois University, Chicago USA
A Constellation of Instances | Sullivan Galleries, Chicago USA
Clotheshorse | Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis USA
2018
ICUQTS | Produced by Trqpiteqa, Chicago USA
Tea With Transluna | Soho House, Chicago USA
Imaging Utopia | Southern Graphics Council International Conference, Las Vegas USA
2017
Cucalorus Festival | Wilmington NC USA
I Have Vivid Memories of Lightning | Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, Chicago USA
2016
Extended Family | 849 Gallery, Louisville KY USA
2015
Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show | Kinsey Institute, Bloomington IN USA
Some Teaching and Workshops
2026
Podlasie Club | Secret Dreams Workshop
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer
“Motion Graphics and Visual Effects” | Dept of Film, Video, New Media, Animation
“Core II” | Dept of Contemporary Practices
2025
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer
“Motion Graphics and Visual Effects” | Dept of Film, Video, New Media, Animation
“Research I” | Dept of Contemporary Practices
Transilience Festival “Winged Creature Workshop”
2024
Public Space One, Iowa City “Dancing the Exquisite Corpse” workshop
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer
“Motion Graphics and Visual Effects” | Dept of Film, Video, New Media, Animation
“Misusing Software, Remixing Reality” | Dept of Contemporary Practices
“Research II” | Dept of Contemporary Practices
2023
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer
“Motion Graphics and Visual Effects” | Dept of Film, Video, New Media, Animation
Hyde Park Art Center | “Wearable AR” Camp
LGBT Center of Cleveland | “Protest Garment” workshop with Aram Han Sifuentes
2022
MOCA Cleveland “Mall Kiosk at the End of the World” workshop
Some Publication
2025
FETTER, "Body of Noise" Album Booklet
2024
“Quicker Than a Ray of Light, Then Gone" PS1 Close House
2023
"Green Zeen" Chris Reeves
2021
“A New Life” and “Lilac Poem” WUSSY MAG vol.9
"Ground Floor" Hyde Park Art Center
Some Residencies and Fellowships
2026
Grant Wood Fellowship | University of Iowa, Iowa City IA USA
MacDowell Fellowship | Peterborough NH USA
2024
ACRE | Steuben WI USA
2022
Hyde Park Art Center Jackman Goldwasser Residency | Chicago IL
2017
Cucalorus | Wilmington NC USA
Some Press
2025
Interview | OUT Chicago WCPT
2024
“Quicker Than a Ray of Light, Then Gone” | Sixty Inches From Center
2023
“Inside PAPER’s Photobooth at EXPO Chicago” | PAPER Magazine
“The art show that flexed on Chicago’s place in the new media landscape” | Reader
“The alchemy of everyday happiness” | Reader
“These Multimedia Artworks Hint at New Beginnings” | Reader
“Celeste Will Always Be the Alt Girl” | Sixty Inches From Center
2022
(Cover) “Currents 2022: Circuits” | Pasatiempo
2021
“It Could Only Happen Here” | SAIC Magazine
Some Awards
2025
3Arts | 3Arts Award
School of the Art Institute of Chicago | Faculty Enrichment Grant
Foundation for Contemporary Arts | FCA Emergency Grant
2024
ACRE Residency | Virginia Aberle Memorial Scholarship
2023
Ignite Fund | Grant
2022
Chicago Artists Coalition | ENVISION Grant
Chicago DCASE | Individual Artist Program Grant
2015
Southern Graphics Council International | Undergraduate Fellowship
Some Juries and Selection Panels
2026
The Other Art Fair | New Futures selection panel
2025
ACRE Residency | selection panel
Roots & Culture | selection panel
Education
2020
MFA Sculpture, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2015
BFA Printmaking, Indiana University