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

Tri-Heart: VulvaLoveLovely.com

Tri-Heart: VulvaLoveLovely.com, 2012
vulva portraits, twigs, feathers, ribbon

Torrance Art Museum exhibition

Leslie (exact replication of the sign for the Dan Graham gallery, which we renamed Leslie Dick for the duration of our exhibition there in 2009), 2012
Pink neon
16" x 72"

Running late in the car we saw a number plate for “Anna”
Met Sue, had a Constant Comment tea, walked around, talked around the PDA performance
Union station decorative tiles, sushi, giant pretzels with jalapenos on the train to Pomona
Just in time for Liz’s show. The pigment festival, students washing off colors in the fountain.
Browsing, drowsing, a beautiful abstract tapestry only $30. Dresses too small
Laughing on the way home, photo booth pics legs up high
Confusion in the car park, attendant attention, we are taking our tights off…., 2012
tights and sweat
46" x 40" framed

Putting the Kink Back Into Straight Edge

Putting the Kink Back Into Straight Edge, 2012

Hand painted fabric skirt, hand painted fabric covers over lamps, six monitors with looped video 8mins

CamLab sensualized the MOCA Auditorium for the Shares and Stakeholders: The Feminist Art Project day of panels at the 100th College Art Association Annual Conference. The set-dressed podium, table, lamps and monitors affirmed the joining of the mind and body, heart and loins.

Score! for Xtra

Score! for X-TRA, 2012
Interactive performance with collected performance scores

In honor of X-TRA Magazine’s 15th Anniversary, CamLab chose 15 scores from its public displays of affection archives to perform with the audience. Eventually all the scores were enacted, with the session culminating in a climactic group effort.

Score!

Score!, 2012
4-hour interactive performance with collected performance scores

Working from CamLab’s archive of PDA performance scores, visitors to the Hammer Museum were invited to create a one-on-one performance with the artist duo. Participants selected a score to act out, make out, press the flesh as friends on the street, father and son at the park, lovers at a bar. Simple to enact, the event provided the opportunity for proximity with a stranger, no strings attached.

Two in a Bush

Two in a Bush, 2012
3-hour event at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Visitors to the Grand Avenue plaza occupied the 60’ diameter relational garment and ‘converted currency’ while conversing on topics including the economy. At the same time, CamLab provided pennies to those using the Instrument of Intentions, a yonic and sonic wishing well. Throughout the evening CamLab polled those present to determine what the group would wish on next. As a gesture of transparency, CamLab donated $1000 of its Engagement Party budget to the group W.A.G.E., Working Artists and the Greater Economy, to help fund their efforts to create better economic conditions for artists working with institutions.

Thanks to Hotel La Rut, Abby Savell, and W.A.G.E.

You Are an I

You Are an I, 2012
3-hour event at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

CamLab programmed five different workshops to take place in the customized yurts installed as an encampment outside the Geffen Contemporary. Workshop activities included basic self defense, introduction to horizontalism, Experimental Freedom Techniques and embodied partner work. Each group wore its own CamLab designed garment while the workshop was in session.

Thanks to the workshop facilitators: Alexandra Shilling, Vivian Babuts, Chris Diaz, Jon Boyd Barrett, Ken Ehrlich, and Heidi Hornbacher