POETRY IS NOT A LUXURY
a performance installation
created by
Sandra Alland + karen (miranda) augustine + Anna Camilleri
Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts
Wednesday May 4, 2005
at This Ain't The Rosedale Library Gallery
Is poetry for bored rich people? Is the creation of art a job? If so, should it be recompensed with more than beer and praise? Watch three multimedia artists at work, and decide for yourself. Sandra Alland, karen (miranda) augustine, and Anna Camilleri co-create this performance installation about being a working artist and/or an artist who works. The installation includes visual art, performance poetry, fiction, and the artists themselves. Audience members also peruse bank balances, bills, drafts of writing, e-mails, resumes, To Do lists, rejection letters, payment records, medical bills, perhaps even grocery lists. The three women create and perform their work live, striving to meet difficult deadlines before your eyes. And beneath the facts and figures, you'll uncover an ongoing dialogue about class, race, gender, sexuality, and ability. Can creativity stem from need and a desire for change, rather than a hope for fame? Why do many artists continue when they also care for their families or have other jobs? Is poetry a luxury?
karen (miranda)
augustine
is the former editor of indie art journal, MIX, as well as the Black women's
art mag, At the Crossroads. A graduate student at York University, her
specialization is primitivism and contemporary feminist cultural
production. www.morenamedia.com
Hailed as a "tough, visceral and funny" (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
"cultural agitator and fab femme" (Now Magazine), author, performer and
editor
Anna Camilleri
has been producing ground-breaking work for over a decade.
www.annacamilleri.com
