Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit,15' x 5',sand,felt,wool,acrylic and oil paint,discarded drawings.

My intent in creating this anthropology and  art research project is to place focus on emotional mark making and color informed by the poem/song "Strange Fruit" sung first by Billie Holliday and later by Nina Simone about the black lynchings in the south and the Frank Leo lynching.

STRANGE FRUIT-THE BEGINNINGS OF MY RESEARCH PROJECT-C32325-An Anthropology and Art Project

I was in NYC last week and saw a powerful exhibit at The Holocaust Museum and decided... especially since I am Jewish, to create an art work informed by this song,Strange fruit which was first a poem by Abel Meerpol,1937.

It was sung first by Billie Holiday and then by Nina Simone(see links below to hear the song).I took photos of lines and cracks and debris in the train stations in NYC.(see images below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Lq_yasEgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

"TO WATCH A MAN HANG FROM A TREE AND CALL HIM "STRANGE FRUIT"....THIS IS THE UGLIEST SONG"Nina Simone

With the Black and White issues today and in lines with BLACK LIVES MATTER, I decided to create an artwork informed by all of this....this is the beginnings.......stay tuned for more as I begin to make the art...as a side note..whenever I decide to make an art work, I choose something which gives me "that lump in my throat"feeling as Robert Frost once said.Here I go again.....C32325 may be the title I use as that is his number on the tree....or simply the title "strange fruit",which is the title of the poem and song and how they compared hanging bodies to strange fruit from a poplar tree.

100 years ago, an act of anti-Semitic violence that changed America: The lynching of Leo Frank

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A stain on American history

BY MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT DAVID MELUSKEY

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, August 17, 2015, 4:33 PM

In the early hours of Aug. 17, 1915, a 31-year-old man took his last breath as the table beneath him was kicked out and the short rope hung from an oak branch snapped his neck.

The man hanging from that tree was an American Jew by the name of Leo Frank. Although Frank was the only Jew in the history of America lynched by a mob, his death had a profound and lasting impact on American Jewry.

Frank, a superintendent at a pencil factory in Atlanta, had been sentenced to death on questionable evidence for murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan in 1913. She had worked at the factory. His trial was a foregone conclusion; Frank had already been convicted in the court of public opinion.

The Northern Jew was the obvious target of the people’s rage. A hate-infused trial ensued, and Frank was portrayed as the insidious Jewish infiltrator, taking what he pleased.

A conviction quickly came, and Frank was sentenced to death.

As he went from appeal to appeal, the case against him began to fall apart. Even some of his accusers conceded that Frank had not murdered Mary Phagan. After his appeals had been rejected by the Supreme Courts of both Georgia and the United States, Georgia Gov. John M. Slaton investigated the body of evidence and, taking a bold stand, commuted Leo Frank’s sentence to life in prison. Slaton did not believe the accused had been guilty of the crime.

But this did not sit well with a community longing for justice but blinded by bigoted rage. After he arrived at the Milledgeville State Penitentiary, Frank’s throat was slit by a fellow prisoner. He survived this attempt on his life, yet the wound had barely healed when on Aug. 16, 1915m a well-oiled mob of 25 rolled up to the prison gates, removed Frank in less than a half hour without firing a shot, and brought him to Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown.

After being badly beaten, he was hanged from a tree at 7 a.m.

With so many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, why should we take time to remember this singular incident? Because Leo Frank’s death was the functional equivalent of state-sponsored murder.

Although the governor had commuted the sentence, prominent Georgians, including judges and other state officials, plotted and carried out a seamless abduction and lynching. A huge crowd watched the lynching, which was supervised by a well-known superior court judge. That very same day the perpetrators of the crime were absolved of any wrongdoing by a grand jury, although they were all well known locally.

Several photographs were taken of the hanging, which were published and sold as postcards in local stores, along with pieces of the rope used to hang Frank, his nightshirt, and branches from the tree.

In the aftermath of the murder, fear spread among Southern Jews. Until then, they had found themselves quite comfortable and safe in their genteel communities. They owned businesses, were respected by their neighbors, and even held government office.

While Frank’s death may have been the only anti-Semitic lynching in America, there were of course thousands of African Americans who were cruelly murdered in this fashion. We cannot forget these poor souls either. We must acknowledge and learn from this dark chapter of our history.

Artist,Ken Gonzalez did a series called Hang Trees(see link below)about the California lynchings.

http://kengonzalesday.com/projects/hangtrees/index.htm

The collage/sketches made to inform the large wall piece I created are below:
Keep in  mind I was thinking of rope,hanging,head down,hands and feet positioned and the cracks and detritus of those ancient NYC city subways.

when i self harm

the girl in  pieces

as the world gets darker

White Blindness

Author of the book ,Through Our Own Eyes, Bertold Brecht 1956

"And I always thought: the very simplest words must be enough.When I say what things are like,everyone's heart must be torn to shreds.That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself.Surely you see that."

I can easily relate to these words in my own life and choose to express this ideology through the work I create.

I hope the art I am making will embrace these ideas and express emotive rich surfaces ,viseral and intimate yet strong and powerful.

A Lesson in the fields of China from the book,Through Our Own Eyes by Guy Brett

These last few chapters discuss the art in China and Africa as means of personal expression about war and poverty in the late 1950s when many peasants and villagers took up painting in their free time to record their feelings about poverty and the paintings are made in a very complex manner and this painting,,A Lesson in the fields... is the first of this kind  and leads up to the paintings about the revolution and shows crop spraying  and patterned paintings on fabric reflect the landscape,some pictures show poverty  showing a lack of  medical facilities with baskets in abundance of herbs and glass vials showing the nature of primitive making of chemicals and healing powders.We actually see peasants discussing their paintings now.

Next discussion is actually about African paintings even though the music was and is  the main art form used to express."The Indigenous cultures defined and redefined themselves against the onslaught of colonialism..."page 99...This was a time of repressed and persecution and humiliation n of the villagers.This is shown in the villagers' art.Naive painting styles with enlarged arms and hands  and sad expressions prevail.Even simple large  mud sculptures are being made in the villages at this time.They presented artworks which were using found materials to express their constant poverty and humiliation. I will end this course with this quote from the author,Bertold Brecht 1956

"And I always thought: the very simplest words must be enough.When I say what things are like,everyone's heart must be torn to shreds.That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself.Surely you see that:I can easily relate to this in m y own life today.

From the book,Through Our Own Eyes by Guy Brett(continued)

I am going to discuss some of the Outsider Art from several different countries presented here.
Pages 32-54.
These are quilt type of artworks done in a very primitive manner,no perspective,child like images all stitched and very colorful....the disappeared people ,this trauma of Santiago when working people,normal day to day workers disappeared after a coup censorship of every kind was prevalent and of course in the arts.traditional decorating of bags and baskets using brightly colored wool(as I have incorporated into my collages) as these political artworks emerged they were seized,of course by the police.of course these women and grandmothers disappeared and were never heard of again.
These were These quilts show the people taken prisoners and hugging their families and sadness if felt in these naive quilts.These working day women who made many of these  lived in squatters areas trying to improve their lives...a beautiful blue quilt with doves flying towards the sun says"Never Give in or stray away from the road"page 35.In Chile in 1973-1984-A patchwork of a series of smaller quilts were made and recounts the day one of The Coup..it documents the endless search for relatives gone missing.. a black square in many of thee is symbolic for  an unknown place as the anguish of not knowing... "We lack solidarity"is printed on one quilt...,one shows a woman on a telephone saying day after day on the telephone with no news..,one patchwork exposes a very brutal crime by the secret police which happened in to a young woman who was said to have dies while planting a bomb but the truth as with many other women is she was beaten to death by the secret police with an iron..there is on the quilt a large hand sewn offering flowers.The last one I will describe is the one about showing women chained  to the railings of National congress in Santiago to demand full punishment for all of these killings and their are pictures of the missing relatives embroidered above the womens' heads.

Fieldwork as Artistic Practice

I really related to this section of the book which is about art in public places.This section is written by Tatsuo Inagaki He says that it disturbed him  that much of the public art did not tackle into consideration the region,the people from the area.He criticized that the art seemed to be more like museum pieces instead of art made specifically for the people living there.He decide to make art ,public art that was specifically targeted towards the people who lived there.He found that researching like anthropologists did was very helpful.His process involved  interviews with local residents. For example... in these interviews he asked about  their lives and their relationship with the place. and residents told stories of important memories here.As anthropologists begin with fieldwork and then place their findings into the form of ethnography or writings I the author  used photographs of the people in their places and presented them in museums in that specific place.

My RESEARCH????...Hearing Faces,Seeing Voices:Sound Art,Experimentalism and the Ethnographic Graze by John Wynne

"The word itself,'research',is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary."page 49
This section discusses the difficulties for artist who choose to do field work as preparation and research for their art..he quotes Lippard as saying page 49.."..experience comes first and theory later once we realize what we should be thinking."she says the danger is that we,artists may become"tourists". However,that being said, "Thankfully, some artists,recordists and composers do take the time to think rather than blithely engage in that kind of sonic tor ism..":But developing self reflective research and production practices both in the field and in the studio(or at a desk)is as important for artists as it is for ethnographers and anthropologists."page 49 A discussion about sensory turn in anthropology activating the senses is important to an anthropologist and artist alike.Hearing Voices.. by Thomas Sobe 's work uses speech and sound so the viewer can experience and interact.

Between Art and Anthropology..continued..PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH..LOOKING FOR TH E MEANINGFUL IN YOUR WORK

"Practice what you preach" that is what I take away from these pages.and the search for meaningful context for your work...
This section begins with a discussion about a year on a farm in a project called Overlay. Lippard's essay discusses about how she always wanted to be an archaeologist and she decided to leave out politics in this project and to create a difficult problem for herself,making her go outside her "comfort zone".She says that as she now looks back about this experience she approached it from an artist point of view,but she does say that this project OVERLAY..marked the beginning and the end of her artistic career as after this experience she  came farther away from art criticism and began becoming a cultural critic.Now she is doing fieldwork all around New Mexico listening to archaeologists and she says the only art discussed in her new book is rock art.In this essay she discusses the common ground between artist and anthropologists is their ethics.This topic is rarely discussed in the art world,she says but is constantly discussed in the world of anthropologists. Her interest is finding out how each artist functions in society and how they choose their audience and social effects.She concludes that it is the "quest for meaningful context,and for meaning itself,has led these artists towards anthropology,which,even when it's trapped in it's own self-fulfilling prophecies,does offer significant contextual models."Page 25

Echoes and Parallels "makes connections between both artists'personal ill health and their interest in shamanism;..."page 37. Coates' interest in shamanism is attributed basically to his ill health,severe eczema which he had asa child Beuys apparently had experience  any "psychic"and near death experiences with three traumas in his life making  an impact on him as an artist and Beuys life once he was rescued by Tatars in Crimea during WWII and he was wrapped in felt and fat to keep him warm.37.Now Coates also had an interest in shamanism as he says growing up in suburbia one dreamed of an exotic wildlife ..Marcus coates..Dawn Chorus 2007 is a video installation and there is a clear engagement with anthropology in both these artists' work as Coates even mentions his preparatory work for this installation as".There is a photo of Beuy's I like America likes Me...where all you se is a blanket wrapped around a person and a cane sticking out...in Coates Journey to the Lower World,2004...you see him as a shaman dressed in" Field Work".However the author does say that there is similar interest in the "therapeutic aspect"of the shaman's role which is  reflected in both Coates and Beuys work. The author raises the question about ethical issues in their work.Both these artists engage the audience in a dialogue "with a figure that has been conceived of as having been a victim of destruction".page 45.It is concluded that both their work reflect self identity issues with the shaman's role within western art.

Artist Ken Gonzalez also did a series informed by the lynchings in California (see link below)

http://kengonzalesday.com/projects/hangtrees/index.htm

This is the third book I chose, called,Through Our Own Eyes,by Guy Brett

From the very first pages of this book ,Outsider Art or Naive art is introduced and discussed as an important expressive art movement."My position is between, and I wanted to take as a theme the relationship between people, moments of historical crisis,and the visual means of expression.p.6
The significance of this art movement lay in the ability for people  to convey such pure and raw emotion when one is not professionally trained and feels more free  to express."For they cross the crude barriers defining and controlling our knowledge of the historical events of our own time as they affect the mass people"p.7 This book seems to be more about the art impulsiveness,creativity, and approaches, the importance of the means of expression of a certain group of people."...here art  becomes a means of communication in which facts are not separated from feelings,in which human beings present themselves clearly as both observers of,and participants in,events.On another level art becomes a means of therapy in order to survive the trauma of events....."p 8.Bingo!...this is what we are discussing in the course now and this is the guts of what my own work;my research is really about.These artists in this book have  in common is their untrained ways to represent their feelings.These inages may seem crude or possibly precious.

Collaborative Migrations:Contemporary Art in /as Anthropology by Steven Feld with Virginia Ryan Pages 109-125/Making Art Ethnography:Painting,War and Ethnographic Practice by Susan Ossman

This chapter is in response to Arnd Schneider's concerns over anthropology not including visuals and not engaging "a narrative textural paradigm with visual working the contemporary arts"page 109. So here three experiments in collaborative form are discussed.Virginia Ryan is the visual artist who invited  anthropologist and sound artist Steven Feld to collaborate with her through written acoustic  and visual media and each project relates and addresses these issues.This article goes on to discuss the collaborative process involved.For example 2001-5 Virginia Ryan staged many photographs like hundreds of  herself in different situations in Ghana and areas around Ghana where she was actually living and working as an artist.Ryan and Feld chose some 60 photos with a discussion of why these photos were so important as artistic and anthropological viewpoints.For example, one photo is of a white woman sleeping and a black nurse sitting by her side. called "Malaria Attack". Another one is of a white woman dressed and laying in the same position as a black woman called "Castaways".

Making Art Ethnography:Painting,War and Ethnographic Practice by Susan Ossman 127-163 ends this book with a discussion and examples of how visual anthropology has actually aided anthropologists to"develop a keener eye"p.127
Anthropologists are now able to use sound,photography,film and video as a part of their process of research and as a manner to present their research which allow a new audience to view research findings and is actually more sensitive to how the people studied are presented.So we see that music and even poetry and theater of anthropologists has been used during research and findings presented but guess what???Painting has really been overlooked. Susan Ossman discusses here, the importance painting can be to fieldwork and that she argues that really painting is a "pertinent aspect of fieldwork"page 127.She painted a triptych in "Casablanca" in 1990 that was actually inspired by a trip she made to Morocco and she says, albeit not realistic, it does portray the  region nicely and ties the landscape with woven colors and paint just as the women of Jebel area wear woven colors of white and red in their clothing when they work..so "Tables and Tabliers", a painting she did in 1991  , she says placed focus on the domestic work of these women,so she says she bought red and white aprons from the women and one of their work tables and made a painting  about it it..However I see a major problem in that when looking at the paintings, one does not get any of that which the artists is saying so I think it falls apart as anthropology.You would have to read the artists words to know what she was doing.She goes on to describe her next projects which actually involve weaving red lines and she continues to push the limitations of this idea of red and white lines.but I feel her paintings do not convey what her words do...she concludes that a sketch or painting is like a field note...page 134...."it can focus attention on certain objects,regularities or connections.once it is hung in public,it can stimulate exchanges about aesthetics or politics."

I must say that these ideas resonate with me and especially with the art project I plan to do  about the lynching of Leo Frank and lynchings of black people in the south.I believe I am taking this idea of combining anthropology and visual art further than discussed here by incorporating actual rope and other raw materials into this piece.

Between Art And Anthropology

The interesting thing to me about this book, begins almost immediately in the discussion about Antonio Ole's work with the emphasis on color and that this is trying to help anthropologists remember to pay attention to color. page 2.."evoke a kind of sensory memory..."which he says is important to his film making...it is interesting when the book says that.."a kind of anti-aestheticism or ignore the affects of images has resulted in a climate where experimentation in formal and other terms is too often disintegrated. Anthropologists have for too long been overly dismissive of formal experimentation....."in terms of their methods and also in their presentation of research..well,it seems that there is more collaborative work being done between the artist and anthropologist but it is still"fragile"However a recent focus on senses within both anthropology and  art roles of senses within cultures may bridge some artist and anthropologists. An example is ...smelling the odors of the streets and a project researching the smells in different languages..But this is a challenging new way to approach contemporary art and science...Teresa Pereda's work..Recolection/Restitution by this Argentine artist shows the sensuousness of materials from earth samples from parts of Argentina so in the form of giant wool balls becomes  a social medium and symbol as she engages with people.Her performance which is weaving yarn between people ,physically.Another example of the collaborative nature of combing science and art practice is seen in Lucien Taylor,who calls himself a :Visual Anthropologist"and who runs a "sensory Anthropology lab at Harvard...has made films called Sheprushes as projections in art galleries. but this book really seems to be a call for more collaborations between the artist and the anthropologist.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Katherine Boo

http://www.aarambh.org/

	AARAMBH is a non-profit charity organization based and working in Navi Mumbai (New Bombay), India. This non-government organization (NGO) was created as a Community Service Center for the most marginalized families living in urban slum communities and rural areas.
Our goal is to provide educational, health and vocational skills tounderprivileged children and women. AARAMBH is registered with the – The Charity Commssioner –Mumbai, The Income Tax Department and the Home Minstry –(FCRA) Government of India.

AUTHOR

Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. She learned to report at the alternative weekly, Washington City Paper, after which she worked as a writer and co-editor of The Washington Monthly magazine. Over the years, her reporting from disadvantaged communities has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “Genius” grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the last decade, she has divided her time between the United States and India, the birthplace of her husband, Sunil Khilnani. This is her first book.

PRESS INQUIRIES
London King
loking@randomhouse.com

TRANSLATORS

Unnati Tripathi started working for Katherine as a translator and
researcher in April 2008. Three and a half years later, Unnati had become Katherine’s trusted co-investigator and critical interlocutor, helping to bring the stories of Annawadi residents to the page. Over those years, she also took many photographs of a changing slum. Some of the more recent photos are on this website.

Unnati has an M.A. in sociology from the University of Mumbai and is currently helping the Indian Association for Women’s Studies establish a digital archive. Previously, she provided research and editing assistance on a short documentary film, ‘Do Rafeeq Ek Chai,’ directed by Rafeeq Ellias, and wrote a report on madrasas in Mumbai for the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission under the supervision of Dr. Ranu Jain. An essay of her own, ‘The Precinct as Workspace: Snippets from Conversations,’ was published in Zero Point Bombay: In and Around Horniman Circle, a 2008 anthology edited by Kamala Ganesh, Usha Thakkar and Gita Chadha. Since 2009, she’s also been filming the annual Mahim fair in Mumbai. Her current intent is to make a short documentary on the religious significance and raucous beauty of the fair, and how it subtly illuminates the tensions and possibilities of the city.

Mrinmayee Ranade was the first translator to work regularly on this project. In the first half of 2008, she joined Katherine in Annawadi and several other slums, helping to draw out individuals’ stories with sensitivity and precision and remaining unflappable even in mob scenes. Her deepest sensitivity was to the domestic lives and choices of women, particularly those who were balancing work and family responsibilities, as Mrin herself does. Fittingly, she is now the editor of Madhurima, a weekly women’s supplement for the Bhaskar Group’s Divya Marathi newspaper.

Mrin earned her B.A. degree from the University of Mumbai and previously worked as a reporter and editor for many English- and Marathi-language publications, among them the Indian Express, Navashakti, Maharashtra Times, and Times of India. As a researcher and translator, she’s assisisted journalists from the BBC, The National Geographic, The Guardian and elsewhere. She’s also taught reporting and editing at Wilson College, V.G. Kelkar College, and Rai University.

Three other women also helped Katherine with translation in the first half of 2008. Kavita Mishra, an undergraduate at the University of Mumbai, helped interview residents of several slums in between the obligations of her coursework. Vijaya Chauhan, a veteran educationist, spent a single day at Annawadi and a second day watching Annawadi videotapes, and in that brief time taught Katherine boatloads. Shobha Murthy was an equally generous teacher when she took time from her real work, running educational programs for low-income Navi Mumbai children, to help Katherine interview parents and children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGNEkdGy9NI

INJUSTICE FOR THE POOR IN MUMBAI-THE COURT TRIALS AND JUDGE

pages 200
"while Abdul's father privately believed that  the only Indians who went on trial were too poor to pay off the police....."sometimes  5-11 years could pass before a trial was held to the poor every day and that meant waiting meant a forfeit of wages.and to make matters worse these "fast paced trials"the judge could be reviewing 35 casses all at the same time...murderers,rapists and those who lied or stole  were sitting next to each other all being tried at the same time..while waiting in prison you can imagine the fate.....and worse no one really cared about the outcomes of the trials of the poor.many could not even understand what was even being said against them in trials.

TRASH

I see that many of the students are discussing trash and how to make the public more aware of this problem through art.I relate to this because my book one is all about this issue and the cool thing is that Abdul(character in my book)whose livelihood is collecting,sorting and then selling trash to the big recycling companies, to make money for his family to survive in the slums of Mumbai,,,...is not doing it  for any other reason but to make money as it is the most lucrative job in the slums..but he doesn't even realize the good he is doing by collecting and getting rid of the trash,,,,interesting

The last Gardner in Aleppo

https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10154001524696939/


My students in Contemporary Crafts are creating what I am calling an IN MEMORY project...informed by this video.They are making sculptural gardens and have to research and choose one person who was killed in Aleppo and create this sculptural/crafts garden in their memory and of course incorporate the crafts techniques we have learned thus far..

WEEK 5

This chapter discuses  a woman in the slum called"Fatima""the one leg"woman, because she was born with only one leg and shamed and kept hidden by her parents till she was married off."All I heard was that I had been born wrong"P 72.I talk about the Monsoons,consistently throughout this blog and it relates to the book about ECO Art that the Research class is reading. Because of the long damaging rains"daily wage workers braced for hunger"during this time...the rains lasted 4 months"for a week the rain came down like nails"but for the one leg woman,it was twice as hard labor to use crutches and get around in the soft muddy soil.She became mean and angry and using the crutches constantly to hit her children and her much older husband.During the days she took men callers even while her children were in the hut. No one could go outside during these times.Then her young sister dies,she had drowned in a pail at the age of 6 and Fatima's daughter witnessed this...But young girls in the slums died all the time so one became immune to this.and even worse that sickly children in the slums were"done away with" because of the cost of their care could ruin a family for life.But after her sister died Fatima also became liberated.She drew on black dramatic eyebrows on her face and put white powder on her cheeks.She seemed to feel  beautiful with the men whom she invited into her hut. and her husband worked 15 hours during the day sorting trash and then was treated like trash by Fatima at night.The constant longing to leave the slum and the extreme difficulties arise all the time espeically for women and girls.Six months ago, five contemporary European abstract artists were invited by Ashwin Thadani, founder of Galerie Isa, to showcase their vision of the monsoon through artworks. As the season approached, the works arrived, and are currently on display, as part of The Monsoon Show.

Monsoon inspires innovative 'found object' art exhibition

• Soma Das, Hindustan Times, Mumbai
 |  
• Updated: Jul 03, 2015 07:32 IST

Old-cassette-tapes-modelling-clay-LED-lights-one-man-s-junkyard-is-another-man-s-art-proves-a-group-exhibition-at-Galerie-Isa.Six months ago, five contemporary European abstract artists were invited by Ashwin Thadani, founder of Galerie Isa, to showcase their vision of the monsoon through artworks. As the season approached, the works arrived, and are currently on display, as part of The Monsoon Show.

Four of the seven artworks used recycled day-to-day items. German artist Gregor Hildebrandt is known to make art out of music cassettes; Welsh artist Dan Rees makes art using Plasticine (modelling clay) and Artex (a building material); Russian-Tunisian artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke takes imprints of walls that are hundreds of years old and transfers it on to her artwork; German artist Anselm Reyle uses found objects such as LED lights, car lacquers and foils and reinvents them through her works.

The exhibition also showcases artwork by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s water-colour and pencil-on-paper work; Eliasson has previously worked with elemental materials such as light and water. Also featured are works by Spanish artist Oliver Roura, whose leitmotif is geometric shapes reminiscent of microscope slides.

WEEKLY POSTS TO INFORM THE FINAL RESEARCH: ART

September 18,2016

In this blog I will post weekly about the following:

• What interests me about the pages I read,
• What I will remember most about the pages,
• What  surprises me about the pages.
• What visuals do I see in the pages.

TRASH,MONSOONS,WOMEN IN THE SLUMS IN MUMBAI

• What interests me about the pages I read,
• What I will remember most about the pages,
• What  surprises me about the pages.
• What visuals do I see in the pages.

• The constant problems with the position of collecting and sorting and selling the trash..I never ever thought of trash this way.ARTS & CULTURE

  These Magical ‘Landscapes’ Made Of Plastic Bags Will Take Your Breath Away.

  

That contradiction anchors an unusual “landscape” series by London-based photographer Vilde J. Rolfsen. Using light and colored cardboard backgrounds, Rolfsen creates “a landscape within the plastic bag,” as she puts it on her site. In doing so, she makes use out of a material whose stated purpose — as Berrier asserted — is questionable. 04/28/2014 11:57 am ET | Updated Apr 29, 2014,The Huffington Post

• Monsoon rains which stay for months...and the damage it causes and then it stops as suddenly as it started .
  

“I remember my childhood days when the water used to enter our house and our parents has to throw all of it out. I used to enjoy because I felt that my house sails like a boat,” says Chandrababu, a Bengaluru-based artist.

“I paint during monsoon because the season reminds me of my childhood days and our duties and responsibilities which made the family bond grow stronger,” he adds.

• The Women and their plight in the slums as most were married off as young as 2 years old and most have to remain i the hut till their husbands return fro their day,often drunk and not caring about the wife.

• The one legged woman with crutches,the most beautiful and "everything"girl,the trash and the rats and the rain falling hard.
• 
  
• An artist from Kolkata, Ananda grew up observing hand rickshaw manufacturers near his house and he tries to showcase their daily life struggles through his art.  

  Sharing his thoughts, he says, “During monsoons, the condition of Kolkata roads becomes pathetic. This effects transportation to a large extent and these rickshaw pullers continue working for their livelihood.”

  

September 26 post ,TRASH

"All those swollen  rat bites on his cheeks,on the back of his head......garbage piled up in their hut ,and rats came to"page 16
so talking about the vocation of collecting and sorting trash for a living....as Abdul and his family and many other families living in slums did...a big problem..rats...if he left it outside,it got stolen..".

The book goes into details about the difficulties and challenges of sorting  bottle caps...some had plastic linings and that had to be stripped out before the caps could  be placed in an aluminum pile..lol..they talk a bout the complexities of "rich"people's trash....the owners, (he sold the trash to), of the recycling plant had to have what they call"pure"trash...


I am stopping here for a moment as I am giving one of my classes an art project related to trash...we are making Tapestries on burlap with only found objects which includes trash..El Anatsui,an African artist has been doing this with bottle caps and tabs from cola cans I will include a video on his process which I am showing today to my students and these are som e of the beginnings of their tapestries,below.I will write more after class.

here are a few..this is Contemporary Crafts...

..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d3RIE195JI 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWYCPV1c8YE

"Just a few notes as we continue reading this book. Note how I highlight methods--meaning research methods--in my questions. Methods of research are ways to collect or create data/art/writing/etc. That could include ways (methods) of making, observing, listening, writing or filtering--different lenses to think about, think against, analyze, assess, etc. For example, autobiography/autoethnography/biography are ways to document/create personal evidence/research. Keep in mind that making art is research. But there are different ways--methods--to make art. Weintrub's book, for me, expands what I considered legitimate media methods. It excites me to read about social practice as a method. Performance as a method. Bio art...getting the picture? Lots of ways to create research; art being one; making or writing or performing or thinking--numerous methods--ways of doing that. This book is a great pioneer for us to get us away from Western Euro linear thinking about what is art and what can be art and who determines what is art.

John Berger's book Ways of Seeing (1972) is fascinating. He addressed some of these natural and normal ways of seeing art that he challenges. It was a BBC series. It's a small book. I think you can retrieve the series on youtube--fascinating to watch--where he challenges historians, and misogynies, and all kinds of bias--that I/we just take for granted--because that may be the way it is or the way I/we learned it. He delves into mystification and obfuscation. I found it an absolute delight and essential to read. What I am saying here is notice those different methods of making art--they are beautifully transgressive and creative." 

Hey Ed,I wanted  to use your words(above)as a reference because I think of my art as research but it is so hard to explain that to people..thank you for this

WEEK 1 Post Pages 1-50,behind the beautiful forevers by Katherine Boo

This is the first book of three,which I will read and which will inform  my research art project.
This author is a journalist whose main focus of her research has been the state of poverty in Mumbai,actually in the city of Annawadi...
Prologue:between roses...This story which is true,begins with Abdul, a boy of 16 and sole breadwinner of the family of 11,who makes his living buy buying and selling trash.His father is sickly and as the police are on their way to arrest the boy and his father for a crime of burning "the one legged lady"the boy has to hide and the father goes to prison in his place.The prologue describes the slum with great visuals and discusses the politics and hierarchy of the slum."so much filth into the air it turned his snot black"(page xiii)"Inside was carbon black,frantic with rats..."..Empty water and whisky bottles,mildewed newspapers,used tampons, applicators,wadded aluminum foil......"p.xiii.3,000 people were packed into this slums with some 355 huts,squatting on the airport's land and the international terminal was separated from the slum by a row of palm trees.5 extravagant hotels were there. This sums it up "Everything around us is roses"....and "we are the shit in between"p. xiii.8,000 tons of garbage daily gave many inhabitants of this slum an income from empty bottles of water and beer..."Each evening,they returned down the slum road with gummy sacks of garbage on their backs....."Abdul was a above these scavengers in this hierarchy of waste business and his income came from appraising what they found and selling it in bulk to the recycling plants.He had been sorting garbage since he was 6.sorting trash to sell.
Part one: undercitizens

UNDERCITIZENS

Part one: undercitizens

"To be poor in Annawadi, or in any Mumbai slum,was to be guilty of one thing or another"pXVii


Well of course he(Abdul) and his family were innocent...She had set herself on fire...."the one legged lady", as they called her...but what do I take from this preface ..The irony to be squatters and living illegally and poor,worse than what we call"poor"and accepting their plight and trying to rise above it......across from the most expensive,luxurious hotels.Unbelievable....The funny thing is the hierarchy and jealousy and lies of how a man can have his life ruined by lies due to jealousy is so similar to any neighborhood,any place in any country,the same pettiness,the same ...and how each family member respects and  cares of each other but  this very poor and shunned family..trying not only to survive but to rise above and out of the slums...the honor towards the elderly...the son finally decided to give himself up for his elder sickly father..and the police..the corrupt police...so what is different? from us?in Texas in today's world?
Undercitizens..."Everybody in Annawadi talks like this...oh,I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make me rich.It's vanity,nothing more.Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself,"What a navigator I am"And then the wind blows east"Abdul's father,Karam Husin

Undercitizens..think of that title and what it means?...This country so rich now with developing and circulating money yet holding one third of  the planet's poor...ok it's very late and I have been teaching all day till 10pm at fort hood..but the one last thought..the drawing in the drawing blog called "in the gentle going hour", is in reference to waking up.. the way it is described in the book,and is beautifully described; waking in this awful place that really does not seem so awful in this very early quiet morning...much discretion goes to waking up in peace and quiet in such a large family all cramped in when all are asleep ... one more quote to help you visualize..."Outside even goats eyes were heavy with sleep. It was the moment of the intimate and the  familial,before the great pursuit of the tiny market got underway"p4...good night...Ed I am tired

SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK,behind the beautiful forevers by Katherine Boo

"In this brilliant, breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the beautiful forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget."

I am a visual person so most likely along with the weekly readings I will be posting sketches related as that is how I research for my final project.Constructive Feedback always welcomed.

THE GIRL IN THE BOX

I know this is not included in my book list... however, that being said... I just watched the documentary of this story about a 21 year old girl hitchhiking and kidnapped and kept in a box as a sex and bondage slave for 7 years.This movie(2 hours long)compelled me to make art about it.It is difficult to watch and an important story to tell.These are smaller painted sketches informed by this documentary emphasizing emotional mark making and color.

the girl in the box#1

the girl in the box#2

the girl in the box#3

The Daughters of Juarez by Teresa Rodriquez

Even though this is not part of my book list for this course I included it in this blog as it relates.The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border

Teresa Rodriguez and Diana Montané March 27, 2007

Simon and Schuster

This book is about the city of Juarez, a Mexican city on the border of Mexico and Texas and just across the Rio Grande. This city has been the center of horrific crimes against young women and some very young girls, mostly poor and most on their way to the American factories where they works. These unspeakable crimes of kidnappings, rape, mutilation, and even murder.” According to Amnesty International, as of 2006 more than 400 bodies have been recovered, with hundreds still missing.”

“As for who is behind the murders themselves, the answer remains unknown, although many have argued that the killings have become a sort of blood sport, due to the lawlessness of the city itself. Among the theories being considered are illegal trafficking in human organs, ritualistic satanic sacrifices, copycat killers, and a conspiracy between members of the powerful Juarez drug cartel and some corrupt Mexican officials who have turned a blind eye to the felonies, all the while lining their pockets with money drenched in blood. “

“Despite numerous arrests over the last ten years, the murders continue to occur, with the killers growing bolder, dumping bodies in the city itself rather than on the outskirts of town, as was initially the case, indicating a possible growing and most alarming alliance of silence and cover-up by Mexican politicians.” 

she felt daughterless

    Susan Harmon,12 'x 7',mixed on canvas,2016.
    Informed by the book,Daughters of Juarez