Guess who's coming to dinner (or the last supper). Alma Leiva. February 2019. Elsewhere Museum, greensboro, NC. Video documentation of curated dinner in collaboration with Jennida Chase and Hassan Pitts. 9 min 2 secs. Inkjet prints, embroidery, and poetry on museum collection fabric; ongoing collection of stories. 264” x 138” in. Live music performance in collaboration with Joshua Marquez.
Embroidery process
Embroidery process
QR code detail.
Embroidery process
Interactive Greensboro, NC. Map image.2019.
Guess who’s coming to dinner (or the last supper) is a research-based interdisciplinary project that includes interactive, performance, and sensory elements. Inspired by Leiva’s grandmother who worked in a Florida tomato field in the 1980’s, this project is a response to the rising deportations of food industry workers in North Carolina. The project activates Elsewhere’s dining space through a tablecloth, web platform, poetry, a dinner event, and experimental sound performance. Guess Who encourages awareness about migration and labor through personal stories, pertinent statistics, and poetry that humanize this vulnerable demographic.
Through public engagement, Leiva facilitates a platform to bring this difficult conversation to the “table:” A concept she recalls in the title after Stanley Kramer’s 1967 film. Also recalling the table in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting, the project includes a hand-made tablecloth that pairs traditional “women crafts,” or the embroidery using inherited thread, with QR code technology. In the center, a printed, embroidered Greensboro map that resembles a living organism offers interactivity that takes participants to relevant information. On both ends, the tablecloth presents a split North Carolina state map with a poem by Leiva (translated by Walter Krochmal), dedicated to the workers in Spanish and English. In collaboration with local immigrant organization FaithAction, Leiva expands the conversation beyond the event’s inauguration by incorporating an expanding web platform that continuously features regional migrant workers’ personal stories.
In order to encourage engagement and critical thought, the artist served dishes during her opening exhibition using locally grown produce in collaboration with local artist Jennida Chase and videographer Hassan Pitts. The resulting food stains on the tablecloth become a growing archive of use. To add another layer, a responsive live experimental sound performance by composer Joshua Marquez played throughout the project’s inauguration. As a take-away memento, the artist handed custom printed napkins to the public.
Site-specific sound installation
Green Space Gallery, Miami FL
Donated erasers, blackboard, chalk, found sound, website
Dimensions variable
2021
A room of his own
A room of his own: notes to DeSantis, is a site-specific installation that includes sound and a website. Through a memorial, a chalkboard and other elements, the work presents a multi-sensory experience and a growing archive in response to Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis’, violation of Sunshine laws ( 2021 cover-up of Covid-19 data, including 900 infections two weeks after schools reopened in August ) to advance a political agenda including the infamous ban on school mask mandates. Since reopening, many schools have shut down and more than 100 school workers and students have died.
The installation consists of two walls covered with chalkboard erasers (most of them donated by local schools) to memorialize the victims. A small chalkboard on another wall, presents viewers with mostly smudged out 2021, COVID-19 data.
The erasers, used to erase the data, resemble a storm cloud pattern– only receding in random areas to reveal the names of the victims while a DeSantis speech on the ban alternating with a reading from the sunshine manual echoes throughout the space. Willing participants are encouraged to contribute by submitting their stories in response to the project through the website.