Paradise Portals

AREA 405 is proud to present Paradise Portals, a seven-channel multimedia video installation and performance directed by Red Rae, a 2024 Rubys Artist Grant awardee. The exhibition opens on May 9, 2025, and runs through June 13, 2025, featuring performances each weekend, 8 in total, with a sliding-scale ticket price of $10–$50. The gallery is open from Thursday to Saturday, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. The opening reception will take place May 9 from 5:00 – 9:00, participating in the Station North Second Friday Art Walk.

Video installations in Paradise Portals weave together performance documentation, drone footage, livestream video, and green screen technology to create portals between seven performers’ bodies and the environments that hold personal significance for them. Set within the historically preserved industrial space of AREA 405, the projections loop across multiple circular canvases and plexiglass creating the illusion of portals floating in space. Each week, audiences are invited to experience live performances that unfold simultaneously with the illuminated moving images.

The term portal was chosen by artist and director Red Rae with the belief that they open into alternative realities, warping fantasies, grief, loss, love and more. They prompted questions to seven collaborators — renowned queer visual artists, musicians, drag queens, and scholars: Eli Erlick, Aave, Rahne Alexander, Soleil, Bao Nguyen, Alex D’Agostine, Amy Reid, Pangelica, Bryce Hample, Arit Emmanuela and Max Gregg “If your body is a portal, where does it lead?” In response to this inquiry, Red and the others guide us through the portals bending reality and granting us new perspectives on life and identity.

The exhibition Paradise Portals is made possible by The Rubys Artist Grant Program and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.

Disclaimer: This exhibition contains content related to queerness, nudity, and other adult themes. Visitors aged 13 and under must be accompanied by an adult to enter the gallery.

Opening Reception:

Friday, 05/09/2025

5:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Gallery Hours:

Thursday – Saturday

1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Programming:

Opening Performance

Red Rae, Aave Blue, and Alex D’Agostino

Friday, 05/09/2025

Door at 5:00 p.m., Performance at 7:00 p.m.

Free (Donation Accepted)

Performance

Red Rae, Rahne Alexander, and Aave Blue

Sunday, 05/11/2025