Elementos filtrados por fecha: Martes, 03 Septiembre 2024
The Indiana Clothesline (2018)
Photo: Samantha Mccain Veach
Introduction
El Tendedero has been used in different ways, but it was particularly interesting in Indiana because the piece was adopted as a political tool by Women4Change https://www.women4changeindiana.org/ who used it to help them modify consent laws in cases of sexual abuse in Indiana.
On June 2018, Ann Stack (from Women4Change) contacted me to activate the piece in Indianapolis. She had seen El Tendedero at the National Museum of Women in the Arts https://nmwa.org/exhibitions/el-tendedero/ and thought it could be a useful tool for them.
Women4Change held a first trial iteration of El Tendedero on November 2nd to understand how to involve other institutions and to define the strategies needed in this collaboration between their group, the staff at the Indianapolis Museum of Art where it would take place and myself. You can see some of the documentation here https://sammcveachphoto.passgallery.com/-theclotheslineproject/gallery
In late 2019, I conducted two workshops and gave a lecture for those who would be responsible of replicating the workshop and the iterations.
On March 5th, 2020, The Indiana Clothesline with the thousands of responses they gathered were set up as a protest at the State Congress.
Subsequently, an exhibition was mounted as a tribute to El Tendedero, in which 3 artists from the United States participated. You can see the virtual tour here. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=YfzjcnQVmQ4&fbclid=IwAR1f0Dlys66YscbLHjdPsVFsclP1fXfFxTGCmVbCLgl7YzPDhGR_6l9cHhM
For more information, visit Women4Change's Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Women4ChangeIndiana
The Beginning
Photo: Samantha Mccain Veach
I am continually amazed by the different ways in which each community appropriates El Tendedero. In this case, The Indiana Clothesline, which is supposed to conclude by late 2020, it has been taken up by a group of women as a tool to gather responses about sexual harassment in their State, present them to their Congress, and demand legislative changes. I have accompanied the process from the beginning, but the women who invited me already had a clear understanding of what they wanted to achieve and how.
On June 2018, I received an email from Melani Douglass from the National Museum of Women Artists, where I had done a Tendedero in 2017, informing me that Ann Stack had contacted them because they wanted to do it and asked if I could share my contact information. Naturally, I agreed, and shortly after, I received a warm email from Ann, stating that she had read about the project in the museum's magazine and wanted to bring it to Indianapolis. She is an active member of a nonpartisan, community-based, collaborative organization called Women4Change Indiana, and she had already reached out to Preston Bautista, Interim Director of Public Programs at the IMOCA, the Harrison Center, and other groups to invite them to participate.
After our initial conversations, they decided that they wanted to conduct a pilot Tendedero to understand how it worked. This first iteration took place on November 2, 2018, at the Harrison Center.
In the words of Joanna Taft, the executive director of the center: "It was an amazing night. One of the participants commented that it was the most silent and yet most thunderous exhibition at the Harrison Center. People approached the space reverently and solemnly. Many wiped tears from their eyes. They hugged each other. They reflected. Writing was constant. We used the 5,000-square-foot room so that people could slowly navigate through the exhibition and think." You can find the complete photographic documentation of that night, taken by Samantha Mccain Veach, right here. https://sammcveachphoto.passgallery.com/-theclotheslineproject/gallery
Photo Samantha Mccain Veach
They kept the cards and the rest of the materials to continue using them.
Over the following weeks, we kept a lively correspondence and had some Skype conversations, discussing goals, strategies, and practical issues, and gradually, the project took shape. In August, they put me in touch with Lindsay Hamman, the Director of Public Programs, and Bryn Jackson, the Curatorial Assistant for Performance and Public Experiences, both from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and we started working with the organizations on a long list of topics that could be addressed in El Tendedero. In the end, they decided to focus on sexual violence in an effort to change the law regarding the definition of consent.
On Tuesday, October 29, 2019, I traveled to Indianapolis to give a lecture and conduct two workshops with the people who would be responsible for replicating El Tendedero throughout the state of Indiana. The workshops took place on the 29th and 30th. It was one of those intense and compact trips that have characterized the iterations of this piece.
Everything would have gone perfectly, but on Wednesday afternoon, after they gave me a guided tour of the museum and we went for lunch, I returned to the hotel to rest a bit before my lecture and suddenly got very sick to my stomach and the talk had to be rescheduled for Friday.
The workshops went smoothly, and it was interesting because the participants are usually artists and activists who have worked on issues of sexual violence and are therefore open to discussing even their own personal experiences, and in this case, they were mainly curators and officials from museum and social institutions, so the atmosphere was more formal. However, I believe that by the end, I achieved the goal of them owning the issue and strengthening their networking efforts.
Friday was a very, very long day. After the morning workshop, the photographer documenting the entire process for the final exhibition arrived, and we had a session. I tried to be as professional as possible, but I tend to clown around because, as much as I enjoy public speaking, I hate posing for photos.
The lecture took place that evening, preceded by a couple of interviews. Due to its goals, this Tendedero required significant publicity. The strange thing was that I was asked about local political issues, and obviously, there was no way to respond other than with generalities.
We started the evening with a group of young people staging a beautiful poem by Audre Lorde, and then it was my turn. The lecture had a good turnout, but not as good as it would have been if it had taken place on Wednesday, as originally planned.
One thing I loved was that just outside the conference room, they set up a small collapsible Tendedero, complete with its own bag where everything could be packed. It's designed to fit in any car. I was thrilled.
Photos Mónica Mayer
By the end of the lecture, this Tendedero had almost filled up.
These are a couple of the answers.
And the story continues...
For several months, the excellent team that coordinated El Tendedero managed to reach every physical and virtual corner of the State of Indiana to obtain answers for the piece, culminating in a grand event on March 5, just a few days before the coronavirus pandemic hit us. I hadn't planned to attend that event, but I followed it closely on social media.
This is what their invitation to participate said:
On March 5th, Women4Change will take the voices of women who have been sexually assaulted or have witnessed sexual assault to the Indiana Statehouse to create awareness among lawmakers of the extent of the problem. The goal of El Tendedero/The Clothesline is to create conversations that lead to legislation and a cultural shift that eliminates sexual assault and harassment in Indiana.
Clotheslines will be put up in the South Atrium and completed postcards with the stories of women from all over Indiana will be displayed for two weeks after the event. If you would like to share your story and fill out a postcard to be hung on a clothesline at the Statehouse, click the link below. All responses will be anonymous.
You can find a detailed description of the event and all the activities here https://www.women4changeindiana.org/the-clothesline. It is impressive.
The results of the Project were outstanding and eventually they achieved the legal results they sought.
El Tendedero was set up a second time at Newfields between November 18, 2022 and September 13, 2023. These are some of the photographs of this long iteration.
The following are some of the articles written about the piece.
-Clothesline Project seeks to educate about sexual assault and provoke change. Cornelius Hocker. RTV6 Indianapolis. Noviembre de 2019.RTV6 Indianapolis. Novenber, 2019. https://www.wrtv.com/news/working-for-you/clothesline-project-seeks-to-educate-about-sexual-assault-and-provoke-change?fbclid=IwAR065NMb6lENgz3KXWW6BAvmHHJzM6FBBc1O9Aaw_aQe8j57g12RpTZo5IU
-Speaking up, one note card at a time. Mary Beth Schneider. The Statehouse File. October 31, 2019. https://www.thestatehousefile.com/commentary/commentary-speaking-up-one-note-card-at-a-time/article_1e3e897a-fa4c-55ea-8767-3bf17a2a9f96.html
-Study Committee on Consent Announced. Jen Schmits Thomas. Women 4 Change. May 13, 2020. https://www.women4changeindiana.org/news/2020/5/13/study-committee-on-consent-announced?fbclid=IwAR2F3Dgzwaw-AIo_giIhzo2W54VeaLD8W3Bx1fB2ivvJIpHRYb6rXPS7dhc
-Legislature to study how to handle emergencies. Haley Carney. Greensburg Daily news. May 15, 2020. https://www.greensburgdailynews.com/news/around_indiana/legislature-to-study-how-to-handle-emergencies/article_a2dd811a-96ca-11ea-8777-231834e6f1cf.html
-Maven to Know: Rima Shahid. Samantha Kupiainen. Indy Maven. August 11, 2020. https://indymaven.com/articles/maven-to-know-rima-shahid/?utm_source=Indy+Maven&utm_campaign=c5e9f46ca3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_08_06_07_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_26dca66f4e-c5e9f46ca3-377055813&mc_cid=c5e9f46ca3&mc_eid=678c6c99f6
-Clothesline project continues to spread sexual assault awareness. Katiera Winfrey. Wish TV. November 4, 2020. https://www.wishtv.com/news/multicultural-news/clothesline-project-continues-to-spread-sexual-assault-awareness/
-El Tendedero/The Clothesline Indiana: Homage & Celebration. Arts Council of Indianapolis. November 12, 2020. https://indyarts.org/component/content/article/23-gallery-924/exhibitions/255-el-tendedero-the-clothesline-indiana-homage-celebration?fbclid=IwAR0v-ip7vEv88qf4E8tFGhID1uUFbBHNk33nAYtF8VmmXbwY0DVhCs2ZJKQ
-Newfields to acquire contemporary installation El Tendedero/The Clothesline Indiana. Redacción. Art Daily. November 20, 2020. https://artdaily.com/news/129786/Newfields-to-acquire-contemporary-installation-El-Tendedero-The-Clothesline-Indiana#.YBBSDuhKiUl
The Clothesline / El Tendedero Indianapolis: Conversation with Mónica Mayer & Karen Cordero Reima. December 8, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BS5FHCqOE4