Inscape was an installation of art in a former immigration facility where people were detained until 2003 when a new and much bigger facility opened in Tacoma. Detention is a private industry that is making big bucks. Perhaps you heard the National Public Radio expose that the new Arizona Immigration Law was written by operators of private detention centers and passed word for word, along with corporate and political backing from some major heavyweights. The artists were attempting to transform the energy in the building. We could all still feel the unhappiness and fear that lurked in these rooms. The building is available for artists studios, and quite a few artists are already working there.
The building was first built during the Alaska Gold Rush as an "assay" office, and the top floor remained that, a place to weigh gold and to establish its value. On that floor of the facility one of the works made a direct reference to that function. Megan Trayner had a piece on the floor with a gold leaf surface.
Other artists on this floor included Romson Bustillo whose characteristic abstract patterns with symbolic meanings and intentionally undecipherable titles ( to remind us of how it feels to not undersand a language) filled one end.
Nic Meisel's serendipitous installation, with its threatening sounds was off in another side room. I saw these pieces as it was getting dark, and the sense of ominousness in Nic's was definately present, in spite of his cheerful presence not too far away.
Some of the work was really inspired by the space and a radical departure for the artist, as seemed to be the case in the work of Katy Krantz ( judging by the art in her studio) who created a wonderful graffitti piece at the front entrance, based on simulating the actual graffitti in the small excersize space upstairs. Detainees from countries all over the world had written their countries on the wall in black tar from the roof. See piece at top of entry for Katy's artwork based on this graffitti..
The Chinese Men's dormitory inspired an evocative piece by Helen Gamble. The hanging cot beds suggested both the fragility of existence and over crowding. The races were segregated here, and a high percentage of the inmates were Chinese. Jen Mills Landscape of Memory, a room full of seats made of salt, suggested instability.
Ju Pong Lin combined video and an ironing board with an installation of shirts that documented the many different ways that Asians had been expelled from cities in the Northwest.
Gail Howard's infirmary of shredded sheets draped over beds captured the idea of illness within prison, not much care, just enough to keep people alive.
Christian French made a floor game that suggested the labyrinthine bureaucracy and games of chance that people had to navigate in order to get out.
But perhaps most impressive of all was Ladan Yalzadeh's tour of the facility which gave us a complete history and guide to the various rooms and their functions. She had come from Iran in 1986 and been processed through these rooms.Her personal experience was mild compared to what people experience today, when there is mostly only one way out, deportation, but she clearly described the experience of standing in line day after day, the cramped and crowded rooms, and the atmosphere of oppression and anxiety.
For another artist addressing detention in these very same rooms see my post on Eroyn Franklyn
The first Henry V by Shakespeare is really celebrating victory against long odds in war. It was used to rally the British morale during World War II, with a film version starring Laurence Olivier. Prince Hal was a pretty wild kid, but he became King Henry V.When the Church gives him a chunk of money (to avoid having their lands confiscated according to the play's beginning), he's off to war in France, based on some shakey premise that France is actually belonging to the English because of way back when family connection (that sounds like Israel in Palestine). Anyway off he goes and he beats the complacent French at Agincourt because (although this wasn't emphasized but my knowledgable husband informed me) they use the older technology of the longbow while the French used a cross bow with a shorter range. The real story of the war not included in this play, is rather grim, with many women and children dying in a siege. 
An Iliad (this isn't much of a picture but it is all they have on the website, obviously the character was posed before the production) , created by Denis O Hare and Lisa Peterson (who also directed it) was an entirely different matter. It was a tour de force performance by a single actor, Hans Alweis, and he played the entire range of characters ( Hector, Achilles, Ageammenon, Patroklus, Priam, Helen, Paris, Andromache, Astynax the baby son of Andromache and Hector , Zeus, Thetis, Athena) brilliantly, as well as himself (perhaps Homer) and himself again ( a contemporary who sees the meaninglessness of war). 
But then there is the Srebenica Quilt made by the widows, sisters, daughters of survivors of that terrible massacre. Each square is an homage to a lost loved one. Each one is actually woven, it is not a quilt, it is done in the flat weave kilim style, a heritage of the Ottoman Empire in this area. It is done by a group of brave, activist women who are extraodinary survivors, who are claiming a burial ground for their loved ones, who are reburying them, who are organizing to declare that they are going forward. This is the message of woman. I wish there were a play about that.
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I had the good fortune to meet two Iraqi artists during a brief stay in London. First Hana' Malallah, whom I have written about on this blog before. She left Baghdad in the fall of 2006, reluctantly driven out by the war. She has been in London for two years now and has a studio where she is producing art works using canvas that she partially burns, then rips, cuts, and collages onto larger canvases. The result is imagery that is both painfully specific and absolutely abstract, a rare phenomenon. Naturally the paintings recall the destruction of art in Baghdad and the destruction of Baghdad which now, she states, has no government. The change has been shocking and absolute, particularly for professional women. Those who remain must be covered when they go outside and still risk being killed everytime they walk in the street. 
Hana' taught at the College of Fine Arts, Baghdad University. She also earned a Ph.D. in art theory there. Art students came from all over the Middle East and Europe, and could attend free of charge. Saddam Hussein abolished private universities. Now the University where she taught has lost its faculty to diaspora, it building was ravaged, its library destroyed and private universities are returning to Baghdad. 
At the end of my trip I visited a second Iraqi artist, Dia Azzawi. He is older than Hana'. He has a degree in archaeology in 1962 from Baghdad University, then a degree in Fine Art in 1964. He worked at the archeology museum until the mid 1970s when he left Baghdad. He said it was "politically obvious that he could not stay. "
Azzawi makes detailed references to Arab poetry and historical art. For example, in a recent work a photograph of his father shows him wearing a type of scarf as a headress that we associate with the Palestinians, but he juxtaposes it to Gudea of Lagash, the ancient lawgiver of Mesopotamia who wears a similar headdress. Fortunately we had just seen that stunning work of art in the Louvre. 
Finally, the work of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour is in an exhibition in Paris. Above you see her Palestinauts. I have followed her video work for two years and I think she is one of the most talented video artists addressing Palestinian issues (and the competition is stiff)
The artist has explained " The work reflects the fact that Palestinains are in limbo, without a state, as their homeland shrinks like a spot on the horizon . . . The moon landings reflect a widespread anxiety, that in leaving home, we might never be able to return home again.Yet because this anxiety is universal, the pain of the real forced exodus of the Palestinians is doomed to remain a private grief, forgotten by the rest of the world."
Steve McQueen's "Queen and Country" at the National Portrait Gallery is a very different type of art about war, also commissioned by the government. He has been on a long campaign with Royal Mail to get these stamps used on letters. He has created 160 sheets of stamps, each stamp with a single face of someone who has died in Iraq in 168 stamps. 
We also saw an amazing play in London called War Horse, which used life size horse puppets made of pieces of flexible cane and leather. They moved with three puppeteers ( head, tail, and heart) of the Handspring Puppet Company, that amazing company from South Africa directed by Brian Jones and Adrian Kohler. The puppeteers manipulate the puppets directly with their hands in an extraordinarily dexterous and gymnastic performance. The emotional life of the horses, expecially the star Joey in the play, are conveyed in its tail, skin, eyes, ears and even the movement of its body in breathing. 
In our trip to France, we visited St. Remy (the asylum where Van Gogh painted some extraordinary artworks), this is the view out of his window from his tiny room. It is my perverse nature to begin our trip with a view of his barred bedroom. The olive trees look just like his paintings.
The asylum continues in use today, and there was a mural created by children living there. I guess having had a really famous artist living there must be an inspiration to them. 
Aix en Provence (Cezanne's home Jas de Bouffan, Cezanne's studio, and Cezanne's quarry, Bibemus) - Here's Henry in the quarry listening to the guide who told us the geology, the art history, and the history of the quarry. Just after this we turned around and saw Mont St. Victoire as Cezanne saw it. 
Vallauris and Castle Grimaldi (Picasso), here is a sample pot by Picasso, no pictures allowed in most places, but I got this one in Vallauris. The sculpture is in a nearby plaza.There were amazing contemporary artists working in ceramics also. 
and the exquisitely beautiful town of Moustiere Ste Marie recommended by my good friend Romson Bustillo. Here is my salute to the good life in a small restaurant there. 
There will be more pictures soon. Here we are reflected in the water from the famous Avignon Bridge