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.

Production at Elsewhere museum.

Production at Elsewhere museum.

Embroidery process

Embroidery

Embroidery

QR code detail.

Production at Elsewhere museum.

Production at Elsewhere museum.

Embroidery process

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Map_forPage.jpg

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

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    Still Absence
    14;53
    Experimental variation
    Collaboration Alma Leiva and Adriana Corral
    for MacDowell Radio at Art Basel Untitled fair.
    2015
    ​

    Still Absence is an audio-performance that recalls and activates the absence of female victims from San Pedro Sula, Cortes, Honduras and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The artist’s voice alternate amid one another within a filtered composite of sounds that work as a repressive force toward the very act of remembering.

    Premonición 1

    Experimental sound

    Glass, metal, marbles

    2:56 min

    2011

    Premonición 2

    Experimental sound

    Glass, metal, marbles 

    Added sound effects

    12: 38 min

    2011

    OR THE LAST SUPPER