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.
Alma Leiva
Producto Centro Americano: Made In Honduras
Alma Leiva
Installation with sound,
size variable
Materials: Metal, wax, LED lights, fabric, paper, metal thread.
2011
Photos credit: Rame Rampson
In Producto Centroamericano: Made in Honduras, The sense of loss is present in the empty spaces where photos have been ripped off the identity cards representing each "desaparecido" (disappeared). These individuals were kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Honduras in the 1980's for political reasons. The last few cards represent the disappeared after the 2009 military coup, and hint at the return of the practice.The clothes, covered with candle wax, hanging from metal chains and meat hooks, represent the remnants of the few ones found.The LED lighting is reminiscent of church candles. The wax represents the innumerable candles lit by the victims' loved ones prayingfor their return. The metal frames containing the cards, the metal thread which attaches the cards to the frames, the chains and meat hooks are allusions to imprisonment, torture and murder. The found sound presents the viewer with interviews with survivors and family members of the victims, as well as with Ronal Reagan’s 1980’s speech on the danger of left wing movements in Central America.