Exhibiting Artists:
Johanna Poethig and VPA (Visual and Public Art Dept.) CSU, Monterey Bay, Eliza Barrios, Binh Danh, Lola Remedios Felias, Kija Lucas, Hector Dionicio Mendoza, Angelica Muro, Anne Perez, Delfina Piretti, and Jenifer Wofford.
Opening Reception & Special Program Saturday, October 8, 2016 | 6:00 – 9:00 pm | Pro Arts Gallery
Closing Reception & Special Program Saturday, November 12, 2016 | 6:00 – 9:00 pm | Pro Arts Gallery
RELATED PUBLIC PROGRAMS:
M. Evelina Galang - Author of Lola’s House/Survivors of Wartime Rape Camps. Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami, core faculty for VONA/Voices: Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation and one of the 100 most influential Filipinas in the United States by Filipina Women’s Network, Ms. Galang will present her work done with the Lolas.
Jadelynn Stahl with Lydia Greer - Choreographies of Disclosure
Led by artist Jadelynn Stahl, Choreographies of Disclosure is a socially engaged collaboration between self-identified survivors of sexual assault and Bay Area performance artists. The project utilizes multidisciplinary performance to complicate existing social narratives surrounding the aftermath of sexual violence, how the traumatized body is perceived and how survivors’ experiences are interpreted.
Women for Genuine Security Event
Saturday, October 15, 2016 | 2:00 – 4:30 pm | Pro Arts Gallery
“Addressing Military Violence against Women - Past and Present”
Women for Genuine Security is the US-based group of an international network of women from Guam, Hawai’i, Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and continental USA. www.genuinsesecurity.org
Speakers, Film, and Discussion:
2pm Performance:
Vân-Ánh Võ is one of the finest performers of Vietnamese traditional instruments in the world. She dedicates her life to creating music by blending the wonderfully unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with other music genres, and fusing deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions.
4pm Collective Vocal Workshop:
Theresa Wong composer, cellist, and vocalist active at the intersection where music meets with the creative spirit of experimentation, improvisation, and the synergy of multiple disciplines will lead a collective sounding drawing from the ancient practices of lamentation for a collaborative performance at the November 12th event. Everyone is invited to join this workshop and participate in the November 12, 2016 event.
Closing Reception & Special Program
Saturday, November 12, 2016 | 6:00 – 9:00 pm | Pro Arts Gallery
Rhodessa Jones –Actress, teacher, singer, and writer, Ms. Jones is the Director of the award winning Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, which is a performance workshop that is designed to achieve personal and social transformation with incarcerated women.
Theresa Wong - Lips of Lapis Lazuli, A Collective Vocal Sounding.
WIGband - Song for a Monument, an original song by Barbara Golden and Johanna Poethig.
Evelie Delfino Såles Posch - sacred song singer/writer and activist
whose work spans the traditions of her ancestors and the progressive edge of ceremony, world music and dance. Recognized as a Babaylan (Filipino healer and seer), Evelie has been bringing her music and sound healing to assisted living, elder care, rehab center, and women’s prisons.
ABOUT:
Songs for Women Living with War / Bahay ni Lola / House of the Grandmothers is a “living memorial” and anti-war monument that remembers women and children and the violence they suffer. This prototype Global Public Monument for Women was conceived by artist Johanna Poethig and inspired by writer Evelina Galang’s work with the WWII Comfort Women from the Philippines, the “Lolas” (grandmothers).
Songs for Women Living with War is a house of many stories, a place to contemplate the effects of war on women and children. There are many war monuments, but few for women. This is a memorial of transcendence, empowerment, and healing. It seeks to create a platform of understanding that these crimes against humanity do not begin and end on the battlefield. Sexual violence against women knows no time or place or nationality–it is a phenomenon endemic to our culture of war, patriarchy, and violence.
The Songs for Women Living with War provides a platform for information and performances that become part of the installation as “songs” both embedded in the art work and as live presentations, drawing from global and local contexts.
The Songs for Women Living with War project is created in conjunction with the Visual and Public Art program at CSU, Monterey Bay. Thanks for the work and support of VPA alumni John Elliott, Elgene Tumacder and Roxana Keland, and VPA faculty Angelica Muro, Dionicio Mendoza and Stephanie Johnson.