ELLA-GABRIEL MASON

 
moriahellamason.com
 
 
 

Ella-Gabriel Mason
egg walk, Video, 2:19 minutes, 2022

 
 

EGG WALK (2022) is a short video performance exploring fragility, care, destruction, and nourishment. In this piece I am playing with methods of care that belong to another species, attempting to carry and protect an egg on my feet. Inevitable failure leads to a nourishing treat for my cats. In this work I am thinking about the grotesque and monstrous elements of care and the way that care work includes repeated failures and disconnections.

 
 
 
 

Ella-Gabriel Mason, Julie Lee, higu rose, Sierra Weir

MAKESHIFT, Zine incorporating story, locally sourced pigments, illustration, 2025

MAKESHIFT (2025) is a collaboration of text and image created by 4 artists during folkLAB’s These Hollow Hills residency. The piece grew out of conversations about histories of extractive industries, surviving and thriving under climate collapse, queer family making, mutual aid, and deep time. I (Ella-Gabriel Mason) wrote an essay weaving together thoughts on these subjects with my experiences undergoing fertility treatment. I then shared this essay with higu rose and Sierra Weir who created images in response to the text, at times merging their distinct styles in joint compositions. Julie Lee then brought the text and images together into the layout of a printable zine. 

The act of making this work was profoundly healing for myself after going through the upheaval of egg harvesting (fracking my body for eggs). Having my story supported and illustrated by other queer artists deepened my understanding of how to patch together chosen and biological family and how to extend that framework of family to the damaged landscapes and ecologies we call home. I believe you will see this ethic of care in the object of the zine. 

Ella-Gabriel Mason (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist obsessed with embodiment, community, and reinvention. Trained as a dancer and choreographer, they also work with video, text, and installation. Mason works in spiral time, revisiting themes of gender, animality, Jewish Diasporism, sexuality, trauma, and collectivity from new contexts and with new collaborators. Their performance work has been presented in Pittsburgh at the New Hazlett Theater, Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, and Carnegie Stage; in NYC at WOW! Cafe Theater, BAAD!, and wild project; in Philadelphia at vox populi and the Cannonball Festival. Mason has received grants from the Heinz Endowments, PA Council on the Arts, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and the Leeway Foundation. Mason is an instructor at Temple University where they teach composition, improvisation, somatics, and research methods. In addition to their work as a creator and performer, Mason is a licensed massage therapist specializing in myofascial and trauma-sensitive bodywork.