Re-Dressing, again

It's been an intense couple of weeks. It's hard to get people talking. My first tactic of going FEMA trailer to FEMA trailer, didn't work too well. People thought the idea sounded good and were grateful for the offer, but were not interested in taking me up on a sewing project. So starting this week, i have staked out a site, in front of an abandoned strip mall, made a sign that says free sewing service and am going about constructing tablecloths and napkins, which i randomly leave at a FEMA trailer. I am taking pictures of each house i am leaving an item at.

-Carole Lung

The Institute for Infinitely Small Things in Chicago

Transporting unmarked packages to insecure locations in Chicago

On May 18 and 19, the Institute for Infinitely Small Things tested for insecurity in Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Little Village, and Millennium Park. Results will be available in the exhibition at Gallery 400.

Re-Dressing New Orleans

In front of a house on Venus St.

After a week of prepping the machine and getting my stuff together I hit Gentilly Terrace neighborhood seeking clients who are willing to use my services. No takers yet. The few people i spoke with seemed curious, but couldn't think of anything for me to do. so i left a flyer and moved onto the next trailer. Im sure once folks get used to seeing me ride around, they will realise im not going anywhere so they might as well take me up on my offer of free textile worker services.

-Carole Lung

Loomed

Anya Liftig

Loomed

Performed at Mess Hall, 5/13/07

I use my body as a loom to weave environments together using movement. Each performance is as attempt to incorporate the artist and the viewer into the fabric of the moment. Working like a photograph, I use the knotting motion of textile production to capture a moment in time.

Lian Sifuentes, Corpus Projecti

Performed at Midway Studios at the University of Chicago, May 11

Psychological Prosthetics

In May Psychological Prosthetics launched a redesigned website, conducted training sessions, and took trainees out with them to test new products and services on the streets of Chicago. These included two new objects: the 30 Second Rant Recorder, an electronic hand-made device to activate outrage, and the PP Band Aid device to bandage shame and soothe apathy. They also offered to custom design suitcases to house strangers’ emotional baggage.

Graffiti Workshop

University of Chicago students participated in a graffiti workshop with Lavie Raven, Prime Minister of Education of the University of Hip Hop, on May 5.

Participants:

Neal Curley
D A Doering
Owen Kohl
Mia Ruyter
Bethany Strout
Jadine Collingwood
Janet Hong
Sofia Narvaez Gete
Alta Buden
Joe Miller
Lucy Chang
Rose Schapiro
Meredith Haggerty

The workshop was followed by another one led by Raven on hip hop education, urban farming and political activism.

WEEDS: Political Emotion Leads to the Resurrection of War

travis

Every time I see you naked I offer my death bed but you won’t take it. Strange, my flower bed cannot hold you. In my prime I tried to burn away my winter weeds but I breed and then I decay. Strange, my flower bed cannot hold you.

Pathogeographies Visiting Artist Series

Click on the image to see it at full scale

May 5-24, 2007, Feel Tank Chicago and collaborators hosted a visiting artist series at the University of Chicago and Mess Hall in May, 2007, organized together with “Pathogeographies: Or, Other People’s Baggage” at Gallery 400, June 15-July 7.

Events were co-sponsored by the Arts Planning Council, Division of the Humanities, Contemporary Art Workshop, Center for Gender Studies, Department of Visual Arts, Feel Tank Chicago, and Mess Hall.

What did you bring me?

Jessica Findley

This DIY gift bearing and receiving suitcase lets you leave a gift, make a gift or take a gift. Art supplies, gifts and gift contents are included, but anyone is welcome to add to or take from the suitcase.

Free Samples

Sarah Kaiser

My suitcase was inspired by the pharmaceutical industry. I recall the day when my psychiatrist gave me some free samples of some SSRIs (Serotonin Selective Re-uptake Inhibitors) such as Paxil and Lamictal. Aside from side effects such as fatigue, weight loss, and minor electric zaps, they have been really great. (I hope that you can sense my sarcasm!) However, now that I'm hooked and don't have insurance, they are quite expensive. Would you like a free sample? (The samples I'll be handing out are only sugar pills, commonly known as "Smarties.")

Don’t be a bystander!

The Tamms Poetry Committee will be holding a letter-writing event for the 286 prisoners housed in the Tamms Supermax prison in Tamms, IL. These men are in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They have no human contact. They have no library, no classes, no enrichment programs, no religious congregation, no group activities, no communal space. Food is served in the cell. They are not allowed phone calls. Visitation, which is done from behind glass, is rare or non-existent. Tamms is 250 miles from Chicago, with no access via public transportation, and it is generally prohibitive for families to make the journey. The inmates suffer from extreme sensory deprivation, loneliness, depression. These conditions constitute torture, a fact recognized by both the U.N. and by Amnesty International. In spite of their situation, the men are trying to hold up. It means a lot to them to know that people are concerned about their situation. Come, read some of their letters, meet members of their families, and be part of a group mailing experience.

pretty, pretty... pretty over there too

Joan Dickinson

I was assigned a tiny office in a building on Michigan Avenue in the south loop two years ago. Although the office itself is small, there is a large, wall-sized window which opens the wall in an easterly direction, affording me a view of such magnificence as I have ever known in Chicago.

During the first year in my tiny office I stared: at Grant Park, its seasons, its usages, its statuary; at Lake Shore Drive, its poignancy, motion, the push and pull of it, the stops and starts; at our lake, our great lake, Lake Michigan, its weathers, flows, mists, the birds that blow atop it like paper, the sky above it, the paper in the sky above it.

During the second year I began to take pictures. Almost everyday. Almost everyday at the same time. I send them to my friends, colleagues, and students. Some send me messages in return in the form of e-mail and in the form of pictures. One friend sent me a picture of her child, a daughter.