BE THEREPortrait of Silvia ElenaPresented by Honey Space May 30, 2008- July 12, 2008Reception: May 30, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmSwoon, Tennessee Jane Watson
Portrait of Silvia Elena is a somber, emotional work that, beyond functioning as a powerful memorial, provides a window into the tragic and ongoing issue of femicide. Defined as a pattern of murder targeting women, to which authorities have often systematically turned a blind eye, femicide has haunted communities throughout the Americas. In Juarez, located just across the border from El Paso, the issue became pronounced in the 1990's when, following the passage of NAFTA, maquiladoras sprang up there as they did elsewhere along the Mexican-American border, to take advantage of cheap Mexican labor. Women who worked long hours in the factories often disappeared as they walked home at night along dark and dangerous roads. To date, over 500 women and girls have been confirmed killed in Juarez, and more than 1000 more have disappeared. Most of the victims are young, poor, and have been sexually assaulted prior to their deaths. Swoon and Tennessee Jane Watson traveled together to Juarez in 2008 to learn about this issue first-hand. There they met Ramona Morales Huerta, whose daughter was one of those killed. They went with Ramona to visit her daughter Silvia's grave. They recorded interviews with Ramona, captured the sounds of the desert winds and streets of Juarez, and pored over pictures of Ramona's lost daughter. From this experience, came this exhibition. For their installation in Honey Space, Swoon and Tennessee have made use of a long-sealed sub-basement that has been revealed by a hole in the gallery floor. Entering the gallery, visitors encounter a near-empty ground floor space, with a shrine located near the back wall, dedicated to Silvia's memory. From the hole in the floor, sounds of Ramona speaking about Silvia, clearing dirt from her grave, and the desert winds emerge. Viewers are able to enter the hole, and descend rubble to this catacomb-like space, where Swoon's piece— extending over the back wall, ceiling and floor— is pasted, and candle-lit. Swoon has become well-known for her intricate prints and cut paper portraits, which she began pasting on the streets of New York 8 years ago. The technical rigor, emotional power, and physical immediacy of these ephemeral works have brought Swoon wide acclaim, and invitations to show her work in galleries and museums throughout the world. She has done this, yet also maintained a fierce commitment to engaging individuals and communities through projects and interventions in public space. Besides her immediately recognizable wheat-pasted images, she has initiated ambitious collaborative projects— one of the better known being the Miss Rockaway Armada, a collective of artists and individuals who built rafts from scrap material and floated down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to St. Louis during the summers of 2006 and 2007, presenting workshops and theatrical performances along the way. Tennessee Jane Watson is an audio producer and coordinator at the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC, where she heads up the Youth Noise Network, a radio project that puts storytelling tools directly in the hands of teens. In 2007 and 2008 she co-produced Farmworkers Feed Us All, a traveling multi-media exhibit focused on the labor and health of migrant farm workers in Maine. She has also worked with CACTUS, a Zapatista-inspired organization that organizes communities in the Mixteca region of Oaxaxa. She is currently working on an audio documentary about Latino immigration to the Southeastern United States.
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