Reguarding Room at University of Houston

For a large-scale iteration of our Reguarding Room project at the University of Houston in Spring 2018 we conducted several hands-on workshops across campus. Participants made miniature versions of artworks from history with the subject matter of rape and sexual assault. We worked with students from the School of Social Work, from a Feminist group on campus, from the neighboring school Texas State University, and with students and faculty from numerous other programs as well as university alumni. The miniature artworks crafted in the campus workshops were exhibited in a to-scale model of the Rothko Chapel, one of Houston’s most prized landmarks, to insist on the importance of rape and sexual assault as subject matter, and to propose that the spiritual aims of the Chapel could expand to include radical care for those targeted by patriarchal violence. The exhibition took place at the MD Anderson Library at UH, hosted by Special Collections, in a thoroughfare populated by over 12,000 people daily.

Reguarding Room‘s iteration at UH was supported through the Innovation Grants program of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts which is funded in part by Houston Endowment. The project is also supported by the sculpture program at the UH School of Art in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts.

Scores for Persisting, from CamLab's Co-Lived Co-Loved Co-Croned Existings

We contributed a trio of three new scores entitled Scores for Persisting, from CamLab's Co-Lived Co-Loved Co-Croned Existings to the Propositional Attitudes: What do we do now? book, edited by John Burtle and Elana Mann. Published by Golden Spike Press, the anthology follows a long historical tradition of artists who blurred art and life through performance scores, directions, and instructions such as Pauline Oliveros, Lygia Clark, Allan Kaprow, ACT UP, Fluxus, the Diggers, and Saul Alinsky. Scores from the book were showcased at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in October 2018 in conjunction with another publication, Perfect Worlds: Artistic Forms & Social Imaginaries by Michael Workman (StepSister Press, Chicago).

Launch with artbook @ Hauser & Wirth - LA Art Book Fair

In February 2017 we launched our book, Reguarding: CamLab at the Los Angeles Art Book Fair. We were featured by the artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles booth, where we signed our books with relational signing devices created specially for the event. Designed by Ania Diakoff, Reguarding: CamLab includes essays by Catherine Wagley and Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal. The volume chronicles CamLab's time as the Wanlass Artist in Residence at Occidental College, Los Angeles. In particular it documents the origins of our ongoing Reguarding Room project.

Woman's Building / Metabolic Studio Fellowship

In 2016 CamLab was awarded a Fellowship for Animating the Archives: the Woman’s Building, A Metabolic Studio Special Project in Archiving to support the development of our ongoing Reguarding Room project. We did a public RR workshop in conjunction with a group exhibition at Avenue 50 gallery, and an extended workshop with Ed Giardina's class at Cypress College.

Top: miniature version of Peggy Diggs' Domestic Violence Milk Carton Project (1992) 

Middle: miniature version of the Sappho place setting in Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party (1974-1979) 

Bottom: CamLab with Woman's Building alum Jerri Allyn, learning from her about Nancy Angelo's interactive video installation, Equal Time/Equal Space: Women Speak Out about Incest (1980)

Holding Hearing Court (Squat) at CalState LA

Holding Hearing Court (Squat), 2015
custom pedestal, vinyl banner, digital prints, site specific vinyl tape, research binder, amplifier, microphone
132 x 54 x 57"
As installed at California State University Los Angeles in the exhibition on collectives and social practice called “Welcome!”.
Research binders had the themes of 'Force' and 'Dependence (Co- / Inter-).' Texts contributed by CamLab and the members of its Occidental College Power Play class: Emilie Arnau, Gabriel Bethke, Gabriela Castillo, Hannah Kaminsky, Haarika Reddy, Sianni Rosenstock, Margot Simon, Chloe Welmond, and Allison Wendt.
 

Power Play class at Occidental College

 

We designed the Power Play course to examine the power dynamics of the way individuals come together in groups. Through making and using "relational objects" [a term coined in the 1960s by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark] we experimented with how individuals can maintain their agency when "scaling up" from relationships with ourselves to large public groups. For reference we looked at the organizational strategies of movements such as 1970s feminist consciousness-raising sessions, 21st century horizontalism, and free schools. Students used relational object-making to create experiences beyond the immediate materiality of the object--for a solo, collaborative, or communal experiences.

With Respect To...

Holding Hearing Court, 2015

One of two galleries in the With Respect To... solo exhibition at Weingart Gallery at Occidental College, Los Angeles CA. The HHC is part of CamLab's "speaker mounds" series. Participants were invited to browse, read aloud, and stand/lie/squat proud! Research binders had themes of 'Force' and 'Dependence (Co- / Inter-).' Found texts contributed by CamLab and the members of its Occidental College Power Play class: Emilie Arnau, Gabriel Bethke, Gabriela Castillo, Hannah Kaminsky, Haarika Reddy, Sianni Rosenstock, Margot Simon, Chloe Welmond, and Allison Wendt.
Top image: Holding Hearing Court (Accompany), 2015

custom pedestal, vinyl banner, digital prints, site specific vinyl tape, research binder, amplifier, microphone

96 x 46 x 103"

Above: The Reguarding Room, 2015-ongoing
to-scale model of Weingart Gallery that houses an exhibition of rape and sexual assault-themed artworks, crafted in workshops with Occidental students and the public
wood, fabric, foam, foam core, glue, miniature artworks in mixed media
106 x 76 x 22"

Below: Inside-Outside Table, 2013, 2015
custom-made surface in two parts for public and private workshops
birch plywood, paint, ink, metal
96 x 96 x 29”
The table holds reference books, miniature art-making supplies, and is encircled by ten leather 1940s chairs from Occidental College's cafeteria. Reference books include volumes loaned from CamLab's personal library, Aandrea Stang's personal library, the Occidental College Library, and the Feminist Library On Wheels (F.L.O.W.), a node of the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles. F.L.O.W. is a multimedia collection of feminist texts, artifacts, and ephemera made available to as diverse an audience as possible, by bicycle. The single shelf holds the miniature artworks not currently installed in The Reguarding Room gallery model.

Your Body is Not the Same Today as Yesterday (for Lygia and Irigaray)

Your Body is Not the Same Today as Yesterday (for Lygia and Irigaray), 2015
hinged wood, gold mirrored acrylic, lipstick (optional)
91" H x 64" W x 60" D

As installed at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA, in the After Victor Papanek: The Future Is Not What It Used To Be exhibition. Sharon Mizota wrote a review of the show in the LA Times.
Photo: Jeff McLane. Image courtesy Armory Center for the Arts.

Wearing Witness

Keeping Scores, 2014
weekend-long interactive performance with collected performance scores, bi-lingual take-away pamphlet, custom-designed fabric and props
Enacted during our Wearing Witness residency at CUADRO, a downtown El Paso, TX art space instigated by the Rubin Center at University of Texas, El Paso and Machine Project (LA). We observed everyday activity around the city of El Paso and then translated the actions, behaviors, social dynamics, and transgressions into an archive of scores. Participants were invited to perform the scores within a graphic, self-empathic set, at a drop-in afternoon open house, during a theatrical public spectacle, or one-on-one by appointment. Visitors who didn't want to perform could simply observe their fellow citizens participating in relational anthropology.

Selfempathy, 2014

Our introduction to the El Paso community was exaggerated through our wardrobe, which consisted solely of ‘Selfempathy’ garments for the duration of our time in the city. Designed using selfie photos, the patterned dresses are both embarrassing ice breakers and documents of the collaborative process. Each member of the duo chose which dress to wear each day, resulting in a different combination of ‘her’ and ‘me’. As the selfie and, in particular, the ‘artselfie’ emerge as both the bane and the inspiration of contemporary visual culture, we emphasize ourselves by wearing them selves on their sleeves.

Large-scale Trailings Exercise (El Paso), 2014
Documentation of a workshop to collectively make a giant 'trailing' out of fabric. Devised by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, the simple exercise of cutting along a mobius strip is “scaled up” to propose collective embodiment and tactile synchronicity.

With and Between

With and Between, 2014

text poem in blue embroidery thread worn on the clothing of CamLab and eleven of our students at the opening reception for eachother, an exhibition at the Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles

dimensions variable

Permissionary Work

CamLab's solo exhibition, Permissionary Work
Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, 2013

Permissionary Work installation view

Becky (an approximation of the hand-cut fabric font that Becky used in her final project for our Ox-Bow class), 2013

orange neon 

64 x 12 x 2.25”

56 x 12 x 2.25”  

Inside-Outside Table, 2013 

custom-made surface in two parts for public and private workshops 

birch plywood, metal 

8’ x 8’ x 29”

Score for Selfempathy: Design a patterned fabric to be digitally printed using photos you take of yourself. Create a garment for someone whose face you are intimate with. That person does the same, creating a garment for you. The garment should be wearable. It doesn’t have to be comfortable. If worn publicly it should be to an event with intense networking. If you’re out together, get photographed as a pair, 2013

custom-printed fabric, thread, snaps 

dimensions variable

Trailings Wall, 2013 

accumulated cut paper and duct tape 

dimensions variable

Projectional Objects, 2013 

pairs of found objects from St. Vincent De Paul and the $.99 store

For Emma Kunz & Lygia Clark

butcher knives, tape

Voice-over, a collaboration between CamLab and Rebecca Kosick, 2013
text poem in silver and white embroidery thread worn on CamLab’s clothing at opening reception

dimensions variable

Pair Off, Pair Up, Put Together (Dana & Paula), 2013 

digital print 

6 x 8” unframed