Derek Spencer


Master of Fine Arts in Fashion, Body and Garment

I am a director and interdisciplinary artist who makes ensemble-based works. My performances, films, and installations amalgamate spectacular moments of contrapuntal chaos alongside intimate, interactive encounters in pursuit of fleeting and contingent truths. Common themes in my work include cyclical obsession, untethered social situations, incommunicability, and the disorienting porousness of identity.

My performance work is typically devised with the ensemble, staged in unusual venues, and formatted with immersive and interactive elements. My film & video work combines improvisational dialogue, long takes, and anarchic shot composition to emotionally immerse the viewer in the subtle dynamics of unusual social circumstances.

I am the artistic director of Ceaseless Fun, an LA-based immersive theater company. Recently in Chicago, I premiered Personally I Find it Rude to be Boring, a short film, at the 2024 Chicago Underground Film Festival and directed the originally devised play Field of Flesh at Leisure, a new gallery in Humboldt Park.