By My Own Hand, Part 1: GHOSTING

Allie Hankins

Access note: ASL interpretation provided

Allie Hankins’ By My Own Hand is a five-part series of performances that began in 2022 and culminates with Part 5, which will be presented during PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival in September 2026. Leading up to the premiere of Part 5, PICA will be hosting a series of free screenings of Parts 1–4. 

Please join us for the first screening on Monday, March 2, 2026, at 7:30 PM in PICA’s Annex. Hankins and her collaborators will be in attendance. Videos of Parts 1-4 are also available for viewing here.

Save the dates for the screenings of Parts 2 and 3 on June 29, 2026, and Part 4 on Sept 12, 2026. 

The word “ghost” as a thread to tie together ideas of self-effacement, the impossibility of memory, the slipperiness of language and associative thinking, GHOSTING centers deconstruction. It questions attempts we make at containment; at naming; at establishing lines and boundaries. Soundtracked by echoes and reverberations of past performances, rehearsals, and experiments, the show is an excavation and repurposing of the performance’s shadow or ghost. Allie populates the space with light, shadow, haunted objects, dancing, and songs as she toys with the perceived power of the systems we use to define ourselves, such as astrology, psychotherapy, and dream interpretation. As the piece unfolds, GHOSTING coyly points to the futility of upholding a fixed persona in life, or in performance.