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The TRADESHOW
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The TRADESHOW
Presented by RATIO
To mark the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Co-directors of RATIO, Sheelah Murthy and Erica Mott, create performance, video and community interactivity to address the plight of those warehoused by society. Performance installations and community workshops consider the connections between solitary confinement of those in prison, the confinement of those who are silent and unseen as undocumented and/or trafficked workers, as well as those confined by the shame and torture of sexual abuse.
Raising Awareness To Inspire Others (RATIO) is a not for profit organization committed to increasing awareness of humanitarian issues among the general public, and inspiring action to increase justice in the world. We believe that each human person is more inspired to sustained action and involvement when joy and excitement remain primary motivating factors; and that art is at its most powerful when used in the service of human kind. RATIO chooses a humanitarian cause that has been neglected in the mainstream press. A cause that requires an increase in awareness to avert disaster, and yet remains accessible to trust-worthy, efficient aid organizations that can help those people affected. Because we live in an increasingly globalized, world human rights abuses overseas do not occur in a bubble that is separate from our own existence. On the contrary, human rights abuses are connected through an ever increasing and complex web of global economies. This year RATIO will begin to shift its focus to causes that exemplify these links. One obvious link is the legacy of modern day slavery and how it manifests itself in our nation’s prison system as well as in the trafficking of human beings world wide.
To this end RATIO has chosen two humanitarian campaigns: TAMMS Ten Year and the International Rescue Committee.
All of April RATIO takes over the Chicago Arts District Special Exhibitions Gallery offering space for experiencing complex art work, engaging in community dialogue and contributing towards policy change.
Economies of Touch
Performance Installation by Sheelah Murthy
Breathe/Relax/Indulge in self-healing ... Get a massage while doing
charity work.
Economies of Touch is a site specific performance installation
combining the performance of massage and video via surveillance cameras
attached to the massage therapist's body. Drawing attention not only
to the spiritual and meditative qualities of giving massage, but also
to the formal beauty seen as one views the techniques of touching another
person's skin, hair, limbs, body with the intention to heal. Economies
of Touch asks participants to relax and viewers to meditate on their
own complicity in a complex global economy that blurs the line between
touch for sale and touch for healing.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. For those wishing
to participate in the installation, massages may be purchased at
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/32204.
Sewing Re-evolution and Clothing Swap
Bring your tired old clothing and learn how to sew new life into them!
Join Kim Crutcher and McCamie Cole and help raise the roof singing songs of labor, prison and resistance.
The TRADESHOW : Performance Installation
Admission: $25 (food, drink and t-shirt included). Tickets may be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/32202
ULTIMATE MARKDOWN! DISCOUNTED LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
Visit our warehouse. A literal maze of consumer delights built by unseen hands. Experience the powerful force of invisible labor and unheard voices. Watch the unraveling and reconstruction of multiple stories.
What is gained and what is lost in this cyclical exchange?
Stay and browse a while.
Bring something to swap. What will you end up wearing?
Juxtaposing, movement, text, video portraits and 500 lbs of used clothing, The TRADESHOW is an installation and durational performance experiment inviting Chicagoans to investigate the invisible forms of human suffering upon which our economies rest.
Is it a party? Is it a factory? Will you step back or join the forces that be?
With humor and honesty, Mott and Murthy transform a gallery into a space of production, participation, storytelling and discovery. They invite their audience to participate through action, thought, dialogue and telling their own stories.
The work includes collaboration with other community-based organizations including the Howard Brown Health Center, Lakeview Learning Center ESL program, TAMMS Ten Year Campaign, and the Indo-American Center. Performers include Lisa Biggs, Hazel Brady-Filmore, Elisa Foshay, Brandon Hayes, Myrriah Henderson, Meenakshi Marchione, Cleo Ngiam, Coman Poon and Zoe Strong.
Unseen-A-Thon
Take a stand for someone in solitary confinement—literally. Allow yourself to be warehoused in the walls of the gallery for a good cause—the Tamms Year Ten Campaign and International Rescue Committee. Come by the gallery for more information.
Erica Mott is a performer, director, and deviser whose work is particularly inspired by observation of her immediate environment. Through mask, clown, butoh-inspired movement and site-specific performance, she attempts to capture and heighten the magic, mystery and tragedy in everyday activities and interactions. She endeavors to find universality in these actions and her performance that may be communicated across social, economic, and cultural boundaries.
Erica's most recent site-specific performances were featured at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival, Random House Classics, the City of Chicago's Lurie Gardens Celebration in Millennium Park, the Chicago Cultural Center, The Spareroom and Performing Arts Chicago 2005 PAC/edge Festival. Erica has performed locally with Synapse Arts Collective, Blair Thomas and Company, Redmoon Theater, Storybox, and Local Infinities Visual Theater, as well as Washington Improv Theater in Washington DC. She was the artistic director of the MUKA Project Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. Erica has taught workshops for Lookingglass Theater, Northeastern Illinois University's Teacher's Center and The Second City Training Center. Additionally, she has designed and facilitated lectures and residencies for a variety of academic institutions and organizations including but not limited to, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Amnesty International, The Memphis Theological Seminary, The College of Wooster, Chicagoland Librarians Association, University of Witwatersrand (RSA) and University of Kwazulu-Natal (RSA). She has a Masters in Psychophysical Theatre Practice with an emphasis on intercultural performance and Asian Martial Arts practice from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Erica is a recipient of the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Community Arts Assistance Program (CAAP) and the Neighborhood Arts Program (NAP). Currently, Erica is collaborating with Synapse Arts Collective on the development of Grove of the Untouchables. This winter she will be launching a three year performance project investigating the journey of women's bodies through space and time. This ambitious project will include collaborators from the United States, Germany and Turkey.
Sheelah Grace Murthy is an interdisciplinary artist of multi-racial descent; Filipino and Asian Indian, was born in Canada and raised in the United States. Her installations, performances, videos, and writings deal with issues of culture, representation, global appropriation and the power play that informs them. Fluctuating between moments of extreme focus and austerity and a carnivalesque multiplicity, she chooses to work in the realm of performance with both a poetic and political intent. Multiple narratives transpire simultaneously; narratives unfold for large groups of spectators, or for the private viewing of one individual; events occur simultaneously in multiple locations, or as a single focused moment in time. Through her art, Sheelah strives to share her passion for creating various forums for community where conversations concerning philosophical construction, privilege, and the ethics of representation can strengthen our critical thinking muscles and feed our souls no matter what margin we may preside. Sheelah now teaches performance/ film/video at Columbia College and at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the recipient of the Franklin Furnace fund for performance through the Jerome Foundation, Illinois Art Fellowship, Texas Commission for the Arts, The Community Arts Assistance Program grant (CAAP), etc. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as: Lipa Art Gallery, Terra Museum of Art, PAC/Edge Festival, Exit Art Gallery, NYC; The Kitchen, NYC; PS 122, NYC; The Substation in Singapore; Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, Colorado; The Black Maria Film Festival; performed at South by Southwest Music and shown video at it’s film festival; Women’s International Film Festival in Seoul, South Korea; etc.