WW5: Ah, Motherland!

A Wonder Women project presented by _gaia and hosted by New Jersey City University
March 4 – March 25, 2010

New Jersey City University
2039 Kennedy Boulevard
Gilligan Student Union Building
Art Gallery – Room 120
Jersey City, NJ 07305
For directions visit www.njcu.edu

Opening Reception– Thursday, March 4th 4:30-8:30p.m. *Fado performance 6:30pm
Closing Reception and Artist Talk- Thursday, March 25th 7:00-9:30pm
Gallery hours by appointment contact rmoreira@njcu.edu or (201) 200-2269

Artists: Christine da Cruz, Pamela-Cleo Godard, Giana Gonzalez, Willa Goldthwaite, Anjelika Krishna, Lizette Louis, Roxana Marroquin, Holly Pitre, Sonali Sridhar, Agnieszka Wszolkowski

Curated by Doris Cacoilo and Renata Moreira

New Jersey City University is pleased to host WW5: Ah, Motherland!, the culminating exhibition of the Wonder Women Residency Project presented by _gaia. The residency invited artists and curators from the New Jersey/New York area to participate in a six week program that would engage them in discussions about their work, feminism, (im)migration, identity construction, human rights, and culture.

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Hey all take a look at this post

Craig Lawrence Fashion Film from AnOther Magazine on Vimeo.

In 1998 I moved from Bangalore, India to Atlanta, Georgia to study Communication Design at the Atlanta College of Art. The transition from curry to BBQ was tough, but I soon learned the value of acclimation and tempered my studies with a healthy dose of Americana. At ACA, I focused my studies on graphic design and printmaking.

With a BFA in hand, and up for an adventure, I drove across the country to San Francisco, where I became a collateral and brand designer. A few years later, I headed back across the country once again, this time to pursue a master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where I specialized in human/object interaction and sensory design.

I currently work as an Interaction Designer in New York, using web, print and mobile electronics to explore the connectivity and psychology of design. I also work with wearable technology, designing objects that interact with daily life, form addictions and provide comfort.

ArtCV

-over all dimensions: 18” tall x 14” wide x 19” long. Ice dimensions: roughly 3”x 9”x 13”

-towel under neath to protect floor, not showing but hidden under salt. By my calculations all water will be absorbed by salt.

-will install salt on 28th and bring ice on March 4th. Install before opening. This is the plan unless a freezer can be procured on site to hold the ice for the week prior.

installation model

SECOND NATURES

Mirriam-Webster Dictionary defines second nature as “an acquired deeply ingrained habit or skill.” Cicero’s theory of “three natures” describes the second nature as a landscape altered by humans so as to make it more habitable. When that land becomes uninhabitable, historically, we find a new land. With a new land and a new home often come a new culture and soon after a new, albeit complex, identity. The physical action of state changing that happens in “Second Natures” gives form to transfigured landscapes, identities, perceptions, suggesting the dynamic makeup of identity.

uncut baked salt block

Hi ladies,

As of today I have 11 of these (16 x 9 x 3 1/2 in.) ready for trimming down. As you all saw in the ice melting demonstration they have the shape of a baking pan, so I will shave them to look more like a rough block, though I may keep some of the surface texture. I will keep baking all through the weekend to have as many on hand as possible, but I think I will only need the 11.

texture after ice melting

Also, I have kept the two blocks from the “ice on top” and “ice on bottom” experiments. Over the first week the one with the ice on top seemed to have kept “growing” with the water it absorbed. This is what it looks like now.

And this is what the “ice on bottom” version looks like now, after staying submerged in water for several days.

I think the surface of the final piece will look more like the second of these three images, and this is reaction isn’t something I hadn’t fully anticipated. So, I’m excited to see how this will look on a much larger scale.

I find myself to be a fusion of east and west. Born and raised in India and moved to Chicago to study and later settle down with my husband, making America my new ‘home’. As days go by, I am trying to re-create, re-mold, re-visit my identity and the concept of ‘home’.

For ah Motherland! project, I am using my mother’s wedding saris from the 70’s to
create something new, western and personal for myself.
I am draping a simple pleated dress as a back drop in black. Over that I have draped my mother’s sari that represents my culture and heritage; that can be worn several different ways, representing the adaptive/blending nature of an immigrant. as a second piece: I am working on Jacket/Drape piece that could be worn over a t-shirt and pair of jeans or dress..’wear it as you wish’…

My Identity, I try to re-adapt, re-create, re-mold and then re-drape….

Artist Statement: As a daughter of a single parent immigrant, I see the struggles in my mother eyes that others may or may not have to deal with. With most immigrant mothers of first generation children, there are language and culture barriers that arise. These particular mothers may not have all assimilated into American culture or earned college degrees nor even learn fluent English but upon having children they all have vowed to provide their children with the best opportunities they could. Whether the child is raised with the mother’s cultural fist or not, the decision to provide in order to raise genuine successful children still stands. This body of work illustrates the jobs the mothers have taken to provide for their children through wood burning illustrations.

Lizette Louis

Gisele

Wood Burning on Birch

17 x 11

2010

IN MY SKIN

In 1988 I emigrated with my family from El Salvador to the United States – I was eight. We carried with us nothing but a small duffel bag each, the clothes on our backs, and our very own skin. Embedded on my skin I carried traces of the rivers I bathed in as a young child, the waves that had crashed against my back and had tried to pull me into the ocean when they drifted back in, the dirt and earth that I still carried under my fingernails. I also carried in my skin the inheritance from my grandmothers, memories of the land, its history of bloodshed, and the dreams of all the people I was leaving behind stuck in a civil war.

Arriving to the United States we were classified as “illegal aliens” and “immigrants”. I had landed in a country where I was not accepted. However, this was to be my home now so I had no choice but to adapt. I was twenty-one when I travelled back to my homeland and realized that the country I had left behind no longer existed as I remembered it. I did not fit in there and I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Which side was home then?

I have since discovered that Earth is my Mother and that my Skin is my Land, and that I Only Reside in my Skin. During the Wonder Women residency I worked on a new series of photographs in which I created a new found land composed of landscapes from my country superimposed onto parts of my body. I photographed myself against slides I had shot during my first visit back to El Salvador merging me once again with my homeland. With this project I re-discovered the memories embedded in my skin. I also re-appropriated my body as my land, one that I carry with me no matter which country I reside in.

Hello! so I have been playing a bit with Google’s Sketch Up. To all of your advice that Playing was the right way to go about it. I feel this is taking shape and I no longer want to bury myself in ice. 

I am experimenting with the content of each package at the same time that I am refining my 3D modeling skills.

The Happy Meal’s content is all about the Canal’s history: From the discovery of the Pacific Sea, the “Culebra Cut” which is the cut that slips the continent its building to the Torrijos-Carter Treaty  that enabled Panama to be sovereign over the Panama Canal Zone after 70+ of exclusive US ruling.

Rough study

Here I am playing with colorplaying with content

Playing with content

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