The 37-minute film Trash The Musical (2023), from which the exhibition also takes its name, emerged over the last two years in collaboration with performance artist Alicia McDaid. From Los Angeles, McDaid travels back to Philadelphia, her former hometown, to empty out her uncle's house. During the months needed to get the chaos under control, the rooms become her daily stage for performing musical numbers and bizarre self-presentations to post on her online platforms. Surrounded by her uncle's belongings piled up around her, she slips into the roles of celebrities and movie characters and engages her followers with makeup tutorials, TikTok dances, and social criticism. Assembled into a wild post-cinematic collage by Fahrenholz, McDaid's performances are a radical exploration of personal anxieties and questions of aging, unfulfilled dreams, ghosting, and the difference between art and trash.
