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
Through The Looking Glass 3 (Night Stroll/ Paseo Nocturno)
Work completed for "Object of My affection: San Pedro Nos Ve"
Found Footage Video Loop
Running Time: 00:02:57
2015
" El video 'Through The Looking Glass 3 (Night Stroll/ Paseo Nocturno)' utiliza material de cámaras de vigilancia y televisión que registran una emboscada y asesinato en una calle en la ciudad. Con un sonido disonante, el video presenta la deconstrucción del acto criminal repitiendo insistentemente los segundos previos a la irrupción de violencia. En su manipulación del material de video, Leiva no muestra el asesinato, intensificando la carga afectiva del momento: el miedo, la tensión, la certeza que la muerte es inminente para los protagonistas anónimos del video. La evasión del momento de violencia, y la alteraciones al video apuntan a un tratamiento diferente de la violencia." -Laura Chinchilla
Through The Looking Glass 3 is the third in a series of found-footage manipulated videos that borrow from historical, television and surveillance material. The actual surveillance footage presents two brothers’ “night stroll” in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, before armed men ambush and execute them. This video loop attempts to create a disjointed, open-ended tale of violence in Honduras. The manipulated visual clues and disturbing sound effects force viewers to make their own interpretations based on the work’s psychological impact rather than the graphic, direct account of the actual violent act.
Alma Leiva
Through The Looking Glass 2
(Initiation Rituals/ Rituales de Iniciación)
Video from found footage
Running Time: 2:55 min
2013
“Through the Looking Glass 2” is the second in a series of videos that draws from a history of violence in Central America from the 1960’s to present. The found footage presents the viewer with the various manifestations of violence in these societies spanning from domestic, war to gang and drug violence.
“Through the Looking Glass 2” Features a notorious Central American gang's "jumping in" initiation ritual in which the victim endures seconds of physical abuse; the slow motion loops emphasize the action. Presented as cause and effect, aggressor and victim are connected only by digital manipulation. For this series I am interested in the idea that nothing is what it seems, (especially in the heat of the violent act that seems to be looped forever), and how easy access to information in a post-internet age provides individuals with power to manipulate events.
Alma Leiva
Through The Looking Glass 1
(Tiro al blanco/ Target Shooting)
Video from found footage
Running Time: 6:29 min
2011
“Through the Looking Glass 1” is the first in a series of videos that draws from a history of violence in Central America from the 1960’s to present. The found footage presents the viewer with the various manifestations of violence in these societies spanning from domestic, war to gang and drug violence.
“Through the Looking Glass 1” presents the viewer with footage from a massacre at a Salvadoran cathedral in 1979, where several protesters were shot and killed. The slow motion loop is meant to emphasize the action. Although presented as cause and effect, the shooter in the video isn’t the actual killer. For this video I was interested in manipulation of reality, in the idea of nothing is what it seems, especially not during the haze of conflict or even years latter when the incident hasn’t been fully clarified. The piece is also an observation at how the easy access to information in a post-internet age provides individuals with power to easily manipulate any event.