"Conversations: Astria Suparak talks to Marisa Olson."

Marisa Olson is an artist,writer, curator, musician and performer based in Brooklyn and Astria Suparak is a curator who brought Olson and Rhizome's traveling exhibition, Networked Nature, to Syracuse, New York in spring 2007.

LTTR event at the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition

"Together with artists in the show, and other local feminists, we are creating a space for public dialog, intergenerational exchange, live feminist energy, and evidence of our continued presence."

Visit our new web archive of LTTR journals and activities. All content of the journals is online from issue #1 onward, as well as downloadable pdf-journals, and images of events from the past six years: www.lttr.org

I've moved here!

Sign up for our mailing list or join our Facebook group.

The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics

Organized by YBCA, The Way That We Rhyme showcases the politically charged work of a new generation of women. Emphasizing performativity, collaboration and coalition building, the works are influenced by the feminist ideologies and activist movements of the past, while also speaking loudly and clearly to the issues facing women right now. Adhering to the notion that there is strength in numbers, the show culls together work from women of differing backgrounds and disciplines to highlight the common goals of their practices.

Artists include: Lisa Anne Auerbach, Andrea Bowers, Nao Bustamante, Tammy Rae Carland, Vaginal Davis, Eve Fowler with Math Bass, Deborah Grant, MK Guth, Taraneh Hemami, Miranda July and Shauna McGarry with Joanie 4 Jackie, LTTR, Leslie Labowitz and Suzanne Lacy, Aleksandra Mir, Laurel Nakadate, Shinique Smith, subRosa, SWOON and Tennessee Jane Watson, The Counterfeit Crochet Project organized by Stephanie Syjuco, The Toxic Titties, Jessica Tully, and RiotGrrl zines from the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Portland.

RELATED EVENTS: Rhyme In Motion: Performances with Nao Bustamante and Julie Atlas Muz


- - -
"Big Miss Moviola, later renamed Joanie 4 Jackie, is an independent distribution system and feminist art project created by Miranda July in Portland, Oregon in 1995. Utilizing grass-roots publicity, July invited women filmmakers and video artists to submit their completed works to Big Miss Moviola Every ten films July received, she compiled into a "Chainletter" tape which came with a corresponding booklet of letters written by the artists. She then mailed these tapes and booklets back to the ten filmmakers.

Through this access to rarely seen work, the women who participated in Big Miss Moviola/Joanie 4 Jackie created a community of activism and art-making that was scarce in the larger film and video worlds.

As the demand for Joanie 4 Jackie grew, three Co-star tapes were conceived and produced for the larger public. Co-star tapes are selective, curated compilations to draw attention to a specific group of women-made movies. These tapes are: Joanie 4 Jackie 4 Ever, curated by Miranda July, 1998; I Saw Bones, curated by Rita Gonzalez, 1999; Some Kind of Loving, curated by Astria Suparak, 2000.

The project continues. In 2003, July gave Joanie 4 Jackie to Bard College, in the hopes that a new generation of young women would be able to make use of the project. The last four Chainletter tapes (now DVDs) have been produced by Bard students under the direction of Professor Jacqueline Goss, who also maintains the project archives." - Miranda July and Shauna McGarry

Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader
Edited by Thomas Beard
Published by San Francisco Cinematheque

Essays by Lauren Cornell on Wynne Greenwood, Lia Gangitano on Luther Price, Andrea Grover on Treewave, Ed Halter in conversation with Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, Brett Kashmere and Astria Suparak on Canadian live cinema (including Daniel Barrow, Shary Boyle, Alex MacKenzie, Karl Lemieux), Brian Frye in conversation with Guy Sherwin, Andrew Lampert on the issues faced by archivists preserving expanded cinema, Alan Licht on Text of Light, a score by LoVid, program notes by Bruce McClure with annotations by Tess Takahashi, a graphic history of Providence's Movies with Live Soundtracks, and Mike Plante on Animal Charm, as well as other essays and ephemera from Cory Arcangel, Zoe Beloff, silt, and Ian White.


Book Release Party + Launch event with Sue Costabile, Animal Charm and members of Wet Gate and Cine Pimps

"Tonight we celebrate the release of Cinematograph Seven—Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader, edited by Thomas Beard, with a blowout event on the verge of raucous cinematic madness. Join us for the rhythmic analog anomalies of Refraction (“performative cinema with motion film and sound delivered by mechanical means”), presented by collective members of Wet Gate and Cine Pimps; the patchwork performance of Sue Costabile, aka SUE.C, which combines a crafty amalgam of photography, watercolor, hand-made paper, fabrics and drawing into a dark and moody textural milieu; and the convulsive vintage video-scape mash-ups of SoCal duo Animal Charm, as we commemorate this elated occasion. Come for the “live cinema” delirium and flip through the pages of our publication of honor."

"The Politics of Cool: Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby ask why the curatorial practice of Astria Suparak, late of The Warehouse Gallery in Syracuse, was deemed so controversial in that city."

"...I am suspicious when cool is used to stand for political radicalism or moral utility. But what Suparak has done for me is to restore my sense that cool can work as a powerful rhetorical device. Because as Miranda July pointed out almost ten years ago, Suparak curates to empower those who feel less than powerful. Suparak\'s practice is remarkable partly because although she speaks in the vernacular of the DIY culture on which she cut her teeth, the exhibitions and programs she puts together speak about a range of issues, and her sense of social justice is comprehensive and critical. She uses her personal voice and her institutional power to give permission to speak to those who might not believe they had it." - Duke & Battersby, "The Politics of Cool," C Magazine

YOUR TOWN, INC.
Big Box Reuse with Julia Christensen
Curated by Astria Suparak

EVENTS:
• Hometown BBQ Reception:
Sept. 19, Fri. 6-8pm
• Carnegie Mellon University Lecture Series: Big Box Reuse Presentation + Book Signing, Nov. 13, Thurs. 4:30-6pm

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Big box buildings have increasingly dominated the American landscape since the 1960s. Author, artist, and researcher Julia Christensen spent the last six years studying these monolithic, free-standing structures and their resulting effects on our culture. In Your Town, Inc., the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University will exhibit photographs and installation work examining how communities are changing in the shadow of corporate real estate.

Seventy-eight photographs from Christensen’s forthcoming book, Big Box Reuse (MIT Press, Nov. 2008), illustrate the ways in which communities throughout the United States creatively re-employ the structures constructed and abandoned by multinational corporations, such as Wal-Mart and Kmart. Resulting endeavors include: justice center, megachurch, senior resource center, elementary school, and flea market.

For this exhibition, Christensen fabricated an architectural construction as a reaction and response to the big-box concept. Her UnBox demonstrates characteristics opposed to megastore values and conventions, and will be activated for creative and social uses. The installation can enable discussion about urgent issues such as sustainability, user-friendliness, and reusability.

Your Town, Inc. explores the state of our built environment. Between the photographs, sculptural installation, and parking lot setting, the audience will be asked to think critically about how their own town has changed in light of corporate real estate. And ultimately, the question will be posed: how can you reclaim power over the design of your town’s future?

Sept. 4­Oct. 26

+

Nov. 14, 2008 - Feb. 15, 2009

KEEP IT SLICK: Infiltrating Capitalism with The Yes Men
Curated by Astria Suparak
Organized by Feldman Gallery, PNCA + Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon

PORTLAND, OR.
@ Feldman Gallery, Pacific Northwest College of Art. In connection with
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time Based Arts Festival 2008
Sept. 4 - Oct. 26, 2008
- Sept. 4, 5-8pm: Business Casual Reception
- Sept. 6, 3-4pm: How To Be A Yes Man Workshop with preview clips from their new film. In PNCA room 204.

PITTSBURGH, PA.
@ Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University
Nov. 14 - Feb. 15, 2009
- Nov. 14, 5-6pm: How To Be A Yes Man Workshop with preview film clips, Carnegie Mellon School of Art Lecture Series. In the Your Town, Inc. exhibition at Miller Gallery, 2nd Floor.
- Nov. 14, 6-8pm: Business Casual Reception ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This is the first major exhibition of the artist-activist group the Yes Men. Through impersonating representatives from big corporations and government organizations such as ExxonMobil, The World Trade Organization, McDonald's, Halliburton, Dow Chemical, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, these culture-jamming activists have exposed dehumanizing business practices and enacted ethical “identity correction” since 1999. The Yes Men's sociopolitical pranks at conferences, on television and on the web have been widely publicized, but never exhibited on this scale.

In KEEP IT SLICK, the elaborate costumes, slapstick videos, outrageous posters and props will be exhibited alongside new works produced for this exhibition. The Yes Men will conduct a workshop that gives an inside look at their methods and urges people to do something better. It will also include preview clips from their new feature length film to be released next year, The Yes Men Fix the World.

Sept. 20 ­
Nov. 22

+

Jan. 23 ­
March 8, 2009

SIGNS OF CHANGE: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to the Present
Guest curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee

New York, NY @ Exit Art
Sept. 20­Nov. 22, 2008
·       Sept. 20, 7-10pm: Reception  

Pittsburgh, PA @ Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University
Jan. 23­March 8, 2009
·       Jan. 23, 6-8pm: Reception      

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to the Present, guest curated by Josh MacPhee and Dara Greenwald, documents forty years of social protest and political activism through more than 300 posters, graphics, photographs, films and ephemera. This important political exhibition documents international social movements and the cultural production they used to advance their ideas.