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Social Justice Q&A

A is a 22-year-old actress in the city of Chicago. She is an Artist in Residence and Company Member at a local theater. She also teaches acting to both children and teenagers.

E: Tell me a little about yourself…

A: Alright, so when I was 15 I was diagnosed with an eating disorder not otherwise specified. Now it’s called OSFED (Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder). It’s where your eating disorder doesn’t fall into a black and white category like anorexia or bulimia. I went to treatment for a year and was completely fine and came out completely recovered. I didn’t think of it again until I went to college for my BFA, which is a very intensive performance based track—which means when you graduate you’re supposedly an actor. My school, Illinois Wesleyan University, only accepts five students a year and also has this standard for being the “pretty school,” because a lot of the recruitment practice is based on what you look like. I worked for their Recruitment Office and while I was there I saw them bring in the best student of the day and literally say “with eyebrows like that nobody is going care what she sounds like.”

E: They would say this to the candidate?!

A: No! No! To each other. But because I worked in the office I would hear it too. They would even take headshots and put them on the ground, already making a decision, before even seeing a prospective student’s audition. There was this pressure to be perfect all the time. All that led up to senior year. I struggled with my body in college. During my Senior Research Honors Project I wanted to do something about performers and their body image. I took 10, random, different people with different degree tracks, ages, genders, races, body types and 5 out of 10 identified with eating disorders. This is so fucked up. It’s not okay and not something that should be perpetuated. Also for most participants, this was the first time they had ever told anybody or talked about it. I felt upset and angry about it that there were no resources and our culture was perpetuating this. Also that there was no outlet or anyone to talk to. This was the start of what I call Skin Deep.

E: Skin Deep?

A: I started calling it Skin Deep while it was still my Honors Research Project and I never changed it. The process has evolved since then, but the concept has always stayed the same. I would gather a group of performers and together they would create a cabaret that would be performed. For the first Skin Deep the performers were 18-21 years old. I gathered the material from a play process where sometimes I would leave room with the recorder going. This process took a year. The culmination of this project was the cabaret I wrote from the play process that the participants performed for the faculty. Our work is more than skin deep. It’s worth more than how pretty I can be on a given day. At the time I wasn’t aware that this could be controversial.

E: How was it received?

A: Some professors said that this was “old news” even though it’s still happening and that “it’s the way of the industry,” but shouldn’t be. We are in charge of creating the culture, so why shouldn’t we make it safe? I hadn’t thought about the tangible impact of it, but I did have a professor approach me after and tell me how she’ll be applying this to her teaching next semester—and she did. I also did notice a change in the students accepted in the subsequent years. The most profound impact however was on the actors. This changed the focus of my project. Initially I wanted to impact social change in the audience and destigmatize, but I realized that this was healing for me and it also has a message of creating an inner strength to carry you through.

E: With this change in your focus, what shape does your project take on today?

A: The second time I did this project it was right out of undergrad. The participants were 12-18 years old

E: Were there any concerns about including 12 year olds and the possibility of you “introducing” eating disorders to them?

A: No, I created complete transparency about what this project was about. I also had a therapist on hand to navigate what I couldn’t help with. The second Skin Deep spanned 2-3 weeks including divisive play and with the therapist the artists were able to create an outlet for their emotions that was also a support group in a sense that it provided care and consideration. It was an engaging environment that enabled them to present to others in a non-scary communion where they were able to build trust and respect like a theater cast. While at Illinois Wesleyan University I had started a race free, body type free, ability free, and gender free casting called Shringara (which means love and acceptance in Sanskrit) originally as an attack on the faculty. They have their own Skin Deep event, and it is through this club that they operate. They produce one Skin Deep performance every year.

E: Are you still involved with Skin Deep on your campus?

A: I’m not directly involved in the productions, but I’m still the Associate Artistic Director, so I manage their website and if they ever have questions or need to troubleshoot anything I’m always available. It’s just hard to be more directly involved from so far away. Since then, I have also held Skin Deep programs and workshops at different schools and therapy homes both for people with different eating disorders and also the professionals working with them (and have upcoming ones planned!).

E: What impact do you think your looks have on your message when you’re workshops and Skin Deep programs?

A: I’ve been asked this before but I still don’t think I fully believe know how to answer it because that’s not how I see myself. I have been told that my project is in danger of coming off as “a bunch of pretty people talking about pretty people.” I think instead of pretty it’s the extreme strict standard of perfection people like me hold themselves to. They can’t see the self because they’re too busy chasing perfection. I think there should be less of an emphasis on change of perception and instead a change of the culture itself.

E: Do you think Skin Deep has been changing the culture? How have people been impacted by your project? Has anybody approached you about creating his or her own Skin Deep program?

A: Actually, yes. There is this girl who goes to Illinois Wesleyan University who has heard about my project and contacted me about how she can also do research on body image but in a different way than what my project was. The counseling department has also created discussions and an open outlet for people who have different eating disorders. And a girl who had been part of Skin Deep started a club on campus dealing with positive body image. People are still talking about it and are cognoscente of it.

E: How do you see this evolving in the future?

A: I’ve been looking into grad school and have been thinking about applying to NYU because they have a Drama Therapy program. This way I would be able to eliminate the therapist and do Skin Deep by myself. I almost felt like I was using the participants of Skin Deep and didn’t feel like I was giving back and I want to make sure I’m not exploiting them. My favorite part of Skin Deep is when we are talking and sharing stories. The sincere moments of connection. I would continue to develop this in the Masters program so that way I would be able to reach many people and be certain that I was giving back and helping foster an inner strength in performers regardless of what they look like. Skin Deep is therapeutic and I want to make sure that the participants feel the same way and that I can help them.

E: On a final note, what do you want the ultimate manifestation of your project to be?

A: Scrap the entire beauty culture in the performance field and create a radical revolution of self-love on stage!

-Emese Toth

Louise Bourgeois’ “Helping Hands”

Louise Bourgeois was a 20th century sculptor who used parts of the body to address issues of home and memory. The hands in this room show the different stages of the memorial Bourgeois created for Jane Addams called Helping Hands. The gestures of the hands on display [quote] “express a plea for friendship, of kindness, compassion and tolerance” [end quote].

In the middle of the room on a round table are five sets of bronze hands arranged in the shape of an X. There are plaster casts of two more hands mounted on the wall to the left.

Jane Addams once described hands as [quote] “empty, pathetic, nerveless, and showing white in the uncertain light of the street, and clutching forward for food that was already unfit to eat” [end quote]. These words were Bourgeois’ inspiration for the sculpture.

-Emese Toth

Rapid Response

Title: Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt

Date: September 15th, 2014

By: Urban Outfitters

“Washed soft and perfectly broken in, this vintage Kent State sweatshirt is cut in a loose slouchy fit. Excellent vintage condition. We only have one, so get it or regret it!”

Urban Outfitters had this $129 Kent State Sweatshirt for sale online, but removed it shorty after because of the immediate overwhelming negative response. This distressed piece of fabric with splattered red marks is a reminder of the fatal shootings at Kent State in 1970 during a Vietnam War protest.

Barely two weeks before, Zara had come out with a black and white striped children’s T-shirt with a yellow star that looked like the Star of David on it—closely resembling outfits worn during the Holocaust.

Title: Mink Printer

Date: May 2014

By: Grace Choi

Like Taylor Swift’s lip color? Now you will be able to wear it as easily as right click, copy, and print!

Grace Choi’s $200 personal makeup printer aims to start a revolution that will disrupt the beauty industry. This printer is placing the power of style and expression in your hands, the hands of the user, and is creating limitless options for individual self-expression.

Title: Updated We Shall Never Forget 9/11-Vol. II: The True Faces of Evil--Terror

Date: September 2014

By: Really Big Coloring Books

“Beheading, murdering, cutting in half the bodies of innocent men, women and children—this is what ISIS (now the Islamic State) wants to bring to America and its people. What are you going to do when they come for you?”

Is that the text you would expect to read in a children's coloring book? Really Big Coloring Books' We Shall Never Forget 9/11 series are made for children, with adult supervision, to introduce topics on terrorism with images based on photographs. The company has even reached out to government institutions proposing to incorporate their coloring books into school curriculums.

-Emese Toth

Short Review

Rene Magritte once said that he wanted his paintings to make “everyday objects shriek out loud.” Shriek they do, but what’s even more disturbingly disruptive than the works displayed in Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 at the Art Institute of Chicago is the exhibit design. Over 100 paintings are crammed onto the walls of winding galleries, creating a jarring, busy, and ultimately unproductive path.

Magritte’s paintings of “objects in situations in which [they are] never encountere[ed]” are undeniably shocking. In The Rape, a woman’s naked body depicted without any arms or legs, is superimposed onto a blank face, paralleling the breasts with the eyes, navel with the nose, and vagina with the mouth. This obscure association between different body parts functions as a powerful emblem of surrealist thought. In an earlier work, The Lovers, Magritte paints a couple wrapped in a romantic kiss, which denies the viewer the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing this moment. The juxtaposition of what is concealed and what is left visible in Magritte’s The Rape and The Lovers shows contrasting ways he disrupts different aspects of what is familiar and recognizable within a larger theme, such as intimacy.

Poorly conceived wall labels and the exhibition’s inefficient design impedes understanding and appreciation of the power of Magritte’s work. The wall labels, for example, had tiny black print on a dark gray background that matched the exhibit’s wall color, making the print hard to read. Some labels were placed awkwardly so that only one person could view them at a time.

The flow was disruptive due to sharing the space with a school group accompanied by shouts of rules from the guards every few seconds took away from the experience. The hectic environment made me anxious and overshadowed the drama of Magritte’s paintings. I could barely hear the “every day objects shriek[ing] out loud” over the shrieking of the guards whose job was to protect them.

-Emese Toth

Long Review

Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo

The white text on the only red wall across the far side the room is a beacon drawing attention to the only two Frida Kahlo works in Unboud: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo. All the other sculptures, audio and visual media, tapestries, photographs, paintings, and collages are contemporary artists’ works following in the footsteps of Kahlo exploring themes of gender, politics, national identity, and traumatization.

Julio Galan’s La muerte moria cuando pasemos a la vide eternal (Death will die the moment we enter the eternal life) is a self-portrait that cleverly mirrors the intentional design of the space. It is placed between the national identity themed gallery and the performing gender gallery. The man in the painting is naked, facing away from the viewer, red lips and rosy cheeks, adorned in red, green, and light yellow birds. This painting highlights the body and its sexual nature creating a link between gender fluidity and gender identity as well as to national identity. It encouraged me to look at the role that the body plays more deeply.

I circled this exhibit countless times. At first, I didn’t realize the connection between Eugenio Dittborn’s Dust Clouds, Airmail Painting No. 99 and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #153. Both artworks represent absent or traumatized bodies. Sherman’s is a self-portrait that is dramatic and theatrical. The photograph is of a close-up. She is lying in the dirt, dead, with open glassy eyes staring off into the distance. The images of people in Dittborn’s work are from different archives. The bodies are all at rest, like Sherman’s, however they are in different situations. One is an image of a boxer knocked out. There is also a mummified boy, and a man lying in a bog. These images are meant to represent the body as political in a traumatized state.

The body in discussion doesn’t necessarily have to be a human body. Doris Salcedo’s Untitled (c) III is described in the wall label as follows:

“While each project is rooted in specific testimonies of individual experiences that she has carefully researched, Salcedo’s ambiguous sculptures evoke a shared experience of trauma. The artist has explained it is always the idea of something that is common, that we all recognize, turned into something that has undergone a process that is obviously violent… these sculptures evoke the absent body and the contradictions inherent in survival when life continues but is unbearable.”

This well-written label helps make the connection between the themes of politics, trauma, and absence. My favorite part about this piece is that my mind really wants the objects used to be chairs, because they look like they could be chairs, but this specific information isn’t included anywhere. This was my favorite piece of the exhibit because of the amount of useful information balanced with a certain amount that was left unsaid. Through this piece, I began making more overarching connections between other works in the exhibition.

I found myself revisiting specific pieces in different rooms when I made connections between larger themes. The complex web of themes and relating pieces set you up for a lot of walking around to understand not only how different individual pieces relate to one another, but also the connections between them and the overarching themes.

Lorna Simpson’s She depicts a female subject posing as male. The way the image is cropped draws attention to the subject’s hands and their placement in proximity to the genitals. This reminds me of the stereotype that males sit with their legs wide, which made the last image troublesome for me, because the subject was sitting cross-legged. But it is these preconceptions that allow us to make sense of the images we see.

The more time I spent in the show, the more everything started to overlap. This exhibit made me think critically about what I was seeing and how the body is shaped and bound by national identity, politics, gender performances, and trauma and absence, but also how that gives it meaning that allows it to be used as an act of rebellion in those same topics across cultures, ethnicities, races, generations, and genders.

-Emese Toth

Ode to a Small Museum

The European and American Thorne Miniature Rooms at The Art Institute of Chicago essentially comprise a museum within a museum. The 68 rooms are shrunk to a scale of 1 inch per 1 foot and are neatly tucked away into the wall behind individual frames. If all the rooms were life-sized and lined up end-to-end, their combined lengths would be about five kilometers long.

Mrs. James Ward Thorne developed the 31 European rooms from the late 13th century to the 1930’s and 37 American interiors from the 17th century to the 1930’s.[1] She had artists working for her who ensured that all specifications down to the smallest detail were followed.

This collection is interesting because the interiors representing the 1930’s were being created in the 1930’s. This makes these miniature rooms an example of a collection that is both historical and contemporary in scope. Mrs. Thorne was curating what interiors looked like during her time by choosing which representations to include in her collection. The 68 rooms were given to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1941 and installed in 1954.[2]

The unique museum within a museum feeling also stems from the artwork included on the miniature rooms’ walls. The art in rooms from different periods reflect the patronage of the wealthy in the form of Greek sculptures, baroque portraits, and modern abstract paintings. The different layers of this exhibit leaves a lot for the viewer to figure out. Due to the sheer number of rooms on display, it’s hard to take in every single detail and make sense of the different styles and trends specific to certain time periods.

The European and American Thorne Miniature Rooms exhibit mirrors the Art Institute of Chicago’s expansive number of exhibits. The museum overwhelms and tempts visitors to fly through the place to ensure a wholesome experience backed by having “seen” everything. Looking at a few rooms in the Thorne Miniature Rooms, as a small museum of its own, can turn a visit into a small museum experience, allowing for a more personal experience.

-Emese Toth

[1] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-12-03/entertainment/chi-kogan-sidewalks-thorne-rooms-20121130_1_thorne-rooms-thorne-miniature-miniature-rooms

[2] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-12-03/entertainment/chi-kogan-sidewalks-thorne-rooms-20121130_1_thorne-rooms-thorne-miniature-miniature-rooms

Short Review on Chicagoisms

Chicagoisms aims “to revive Chicago’s constructive potential and spark a renewed boldness to engage the city today.” If only we were given the opportunity to actually engage! Though ripe with good intention, Alexander Eisenschmidt’s five Chicagoisms —Vision Shapes History, Crisis Provokes Innovation, Ambition Overcomes Nature, Technology Makes Spectacle and Optimism Trumps Planning, lack the gusto to inspire.

The introduction panel provides the bulk of the text where several sweeping claims are made. First, the exhibition is a survey of Chicago’s urban history. Curiously, there is a large gap of time unaccounted for under each –Ism from Chicago’s incorporation to present day. In “Crisis” the most recent photo is from 1910, “Vision”1965, “Ambition” 1975, “Technology” 1969 and “Optimism” 1973, suggesting Chicago’s design influence is at a stalemate.

The exhibition additionally claims to provide contemporary interpretations through nine architectural models and manifestos presented successfully in response to selected –Isms. Each model is situated among historical examples. Under Ambition Overcomes Nature, a proposal for a 10,550 mile long aqueduct around the Great Lakes Basin by UrbanLab is likened to the reversal of the river. In Crisis Provokes Innovation, Port A+U shifts Lake Shore Drive east onto a man-made extension along Lake Michigan, doubling prime real estate and theoretically solving the financial crisis, similar to the rapid rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire.

However the few glass-domed models amongst the abundance of black and white architectural photos of the past are only little presents, with little presence. A small show with big ambitions leave visitors questioning the innovative future of Chicago’s architecture.

--Andie Kimura

Interview with Amy Watanabe

Amy Watanabe recently became the Program Director for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) and is primarily responsible for their leadership development programs. She formerly served as the Daniel K. Inouye Fellow and has worked at the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in Washington D.C. prior to her current position.

AK: Participants in your leadership summits range from activists to stakeholders, community members to politicians, whereas fellows include graduates and young professionals. With a wide range of backgrounds, what type of discussions and workshops does APAICS host to help set fellows and leadership participants up for community involvement and concerns?

AW: Overall, APAICS’s mission is to build the political pipeline for Asian American political leaders. From the internships, fellowships, regional summits and national academy–it’s geared towards people that have a public service interest.

Leadership training is aimed towards people currently in office looking to move up and people interested in running for their first time. One component is, “What’s your messaging?” and another is “How do you work with your community to find out their concerns?” We also have three policy discussions that community members attend in a round table fashion. Typically education is a big one, healthcare and depending on the local area, we try to find out what is a big concern to make it more specific and relevant.

AK: I read that your organization has partnerships with the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. I am curious what that relationship is because my overall interest in all of this is seeing some similarities with museums in how to become more representative in collections on a cultural and individual level.

AW: In terms of APAICS and how I interact with the respective caucuses and their foundations, it’s really getting the fellows together and making sure they meet other fellows in the Black and Hispanic caucuses. I think the broader scope of it is to build that solidarity among people of color and voices that may not typically be heard or acknowledged. When there is an issue that another group can support, it becomes the power in numbers, essentially. That’s how we work together.

AK: Do you feel like there is a lot of overlap in terms of issues?

AW: Prior to APAICS I would say yes. There may be different reasons behind the issues within that contract, but for the most part I think there is a baseline. When you do get down to the specifics, there are differences in people’s priorities. APAICS, specifically, has a bigger divide based on political party than people’s cultural background. But I think by being a person of color, there is a different framework they work through and that’s probably the connecting part between the three groups.

AK: How do you represent the many nationalities that fall under Asian Americans and generational gaps?

AW: Aside from the different ethnic groups are the different experiences that each community has faced. This has been my biggest learning curve. I grew up in the Japanese American community and was involved with Little Tokyo, UCLA Nikkei Student Union and all that stuff. I was very much aware of the Japanese American experience and a broader Asian American experience, but never really understood what it is to be an immigrant. What it is to not speak English. What it’s like to have to help with your family’s business in order to provide for them.

For me, I related a lot of the things to my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ experiences. Once I was able to do that, it helped me be a better advocate for other communities.

AK: I am sure there is a plethora of organizations that have a valid voice and that you would like to support, but financially and time wise it’s unrealistic. How do you balance advocating for other organizations when there is simply not enough time for everyone?

AW: I think it’s how people present themselves and the information in every aspect of their work and lifestyle. Even if you can’t give $10-$100 to every organization or go volunteer at every single event, when you have that moment to education someone–to be an ally, it’s finding that grey between being an advocate, ally, and total active participant in that conversation.

There are so many things that people try to get me involved in, especially in the work that I do. It brings up something automatically to people. Like when someone asks what do I do and I tell them. They’re like “Oh Asians, what do you guys need?” and I have to say, “Well actually there are communities that are in poverty and there are communities in need in this state and that state.” Or they say there are no Asian Americans in politics. Again, I have to say, “Well actually…” Even though I am not personally out in Houston or New Orleans fighting for the Vietnamese community, being aware of the issues and sharing it, that one conversation that will hopefully change their perspective.

AK: You’re only twenty-six. Is graduate school in the picture?

AW: I’m looking into business. I think at the end of the day I always see myself doing nonprofit work and/or working on the ground somehow. With a business degree, I want to be able to have that mentality and really come up with solutions. I have seen a lot of things I know are wrong and I want to fix it, but I lack the financial and management background to implement that type of change. That’s why I want to go to business school, to be more effective.

AK: What would be your ideal job?

AW: A lot of people ask me “Why only Asians?” It’s not only Asians. I work in the Asian American community because it has given me the opportunity to have a voice and to support other people. But ideally if I could come up with a program or my own organization it would be to bridge different communities together.

AK: To do…

AW: Social justice programming oriented through education, but not in an academic application. It’s really building awareness and that’s why I haven’t really pinned down one specific thing that I want to do because I feel like you can build awareness a million different ways. If I come up with a business that supports disadvantaged communities then I will go into the business world. It really is just to educate people.

After college I went to a travel study program about Asian American community in Hawaii. There was one guy that was so ignorant that when I came back I was like, “I’m going to start my own program!” My friend Craig Ishii started a program when he was at the JACL in Los Angeles called Bridging Communities that brought Muslim American youth and Japanese American youth together to talk about the parallels with post 9/11 and WWII. It’s awesome, but it also excluded a lot of people from that experience. I couldn’t figure out what my program’s implementation would be at the time, but I just had this burning desire to bring people together and not have people be ignorant! It blows my mind that some people can deny other people’s experiences. I think that is a really sad thing when we are in the 2000s and have the Internet but there is still an abundance of ignorance and disregard for cultural history and existence.

It’s really just about why it matters. I want to be able to understand other people’s community struggles whether that happened to someone I know indirectly or myself. Whatever work I do, I want it to be aligned with that.

AK: With increasing interracial marriages, do you see your organization ceasing to exist in representing just Asian American political interests and what would that look like?

AW: It’s interesting to see how these pan-Asian groups can foster support for every single community. With JACL my boss would always say we are a multicultural community and we are pan-Asian. Realistically, we can’t do that for every group. We can’t sustain ourselves, either. And this is big, the whole mentality thing. It doesn’t just support your group alone it may impact other people of color or a different economic group differently. As the community grows racially with diversifying educational and income levels it is going to be harder to manage everything. It’s not that you will see groups diminish, I think we will see more groups evolve.

AK: Is this something you see yourself staying in?

AW: I never thought I would be working for an organization like APAICS because it’s very political and I didn’t grow up being a political person. APAICS has regional summits that allow me to plug into local communities across the country. That’s what I am more excited about. I like working with different groups and different people. The bottom line of whatever work I do end up with is always going to be along the lines of gaining access or increasing diversity. So in that sense, this is right up my alley. Especially in D.C. where everyone cares about something, having that kind of currency and be right in the middle of everything here is a good thing to be in.

--Andie Kimura

Ode to A Small Museum: The Museum of Surgical Science

The International Museum of Surgical Science’s objective is to educate the public on the history of advancements in surgery, medicine and health. The mission is to cultivate the appreciation of the medical field through their collection. The museum as a whole humanizes the history and current state of medicine through the architecture, collection and special exhibitions.

The lakeside mansion, which houses the museum’s collection, was built in 1917. The design, imagined by Eleanor Robinson Countiss, emulated that of Le Petit Trianon of Versailles, a chateau constructed for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In 1950 the house was acquired Dr. Max Thorek and the International College of Surgeons with the intention to use the home as a museum. The original domestic facade and interior spaces create an eerie and beautiful atmosphere in which to view a collection of this nature.

As an outsider to the medical profession, my perception of surgical science is of white sterile rooms, austere personalities and precision. The IMSS, however, is nothing like this. Its collections and they stories they tell are displayed with humility throughout the rooms of a domesticated space. They serve to educate viewers on the historical advancements in the field of medicine and surgery while also highlighting the mistakes and oversights that happened along the way—which cost many lives.

A series of large paintings greets viewers as they pass the entryway and ascend a stunning gilded staircase with checkered marble floors. The works lead you into a living-room like space, with embellished panels and a fireplace. The first painting depicts the first medical centers, which were located in churches. The text informs us that the leading cause of death in these centers were due to lack of knowledge of sanitation. When there was an initiative of sanitation practices it was looked upon unfavorably because they drove up the cost of laundry bills. Not moving forward with the imitative cost may lives. Each large painting in the Hall of Murals goes on to tells the story of professional whose innovations changed the course of medicine from the first medical center and saved many lives. We are confronted with our past of death and human error as we learn about these advancements.

Adjacent to the Hall of Murals is the Room of Immortals housing sculptures portraying medical pioneers. The sculptures wrap around a grand room with reflective marble floors, a dramatic fireplace, and an expansive view of lake Michigan. The portraits seem frozen, encapsulating their story rather then the characteristics of the person. These ghostly portraits are similar to the Galleria dell’ Accademia in the hallway of Michelangelo’s sculptures of prisoners. It is said that those unfinished sculptures house the souls of the prisoners, who are trying to escape the stone.

There is a tension in these rooms that house the stories of lives that were devoted to preventing death.. The audience is asked to rethink our ideas about mortality and time.

Little information is given about the artworks themselves. There is no content about the artist or time period of the paintings or sculptures. (Later, I learned that all of the paintings were commissioned by the museum.) The physical placement of the artwork is not in chronological order of the historic events. If the works were intentionally curated in a certain order those ideas are not communicated.

The permanent collection has a variety of artifacts, specimens and technology that shares the history of medicine as well as broader themes of healing and esoteric philosophies. I think the museum offers opportunities for diverse experiences whether it be scientific, artists or philosophic. However, the exhibits are so text heavy is becomes a challenge to navigate through the information in order to achieve your desired experience.

The didactic texts could be more accessible those who don’t work in the medical professions. The Museum’s subject matter is one that can and should appeal to general audiences, not just those who work in scientific fields.

-Tori Terzakis

Q&A With Parson Brown

Parson is a media activist, community organizer and lobbyist. He works to defend Appalachia by building connections between communities, which are being exploited by coal companies participating in Mountain Top Removal, and other abusive industries. His project, “Topless America" is a film following the national grassroots movement to end Mountaintop Removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Explain what Mountain Top Removal (MTR) is.

MTR coal-mining is strip mining on steroids. It’s the most invasive form of surface mining. They blast the mountain with heavy explosives. There is a mess of chemicals involved in that explosive process, they do that to get to the coal. You ultimately end of with one flat, barren moonscape-looking area with no tops soil, no trees, just dirt.

The people of Appalachia’s water is poisoned; sometimes there is acid drainage that gives it a color, anywhere from brown to orange to yellow, but a lot of times the water will be completely clear because arsenic doesn’t have a color. They may be bathing their children in arsenic water and not even realizing it.

Parson, you have roots in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, so obviously there is an attachment there. Can you talk to me about what drives you to participate in this cause?

I grew up in the mountains of Blue Ridge Mountain, Virginia, a bit north of where the mining is taking place. The landscape and mountains were a huge part of my growing up experience. The landscape is devastated. The mountains are home to the Appalachian people but they belong to everyone, they are a national monument. They need to be preserved for the people who thrive off that land and visitors. There is no other place like it.

It starts in the most directly impacted communities where they are fighting for their back yards and for their children; there is no alternative for them. We made a decision, for me, it’s not my back yard, but when will it be, what if it was? Everybody lives down stream.

Tell me about Topless America.

It’s really following the People’s Movement as it related to MTR, while breaking down the aspects of what it takes to have a successful grassroots social change movement in America. We are gathering the stories of these peoples and being as immersed as possible in that world and in that process being a part of that world ourselves.

What is the plan after post-productions for the documentary?

The next step is to be able to present our documentary, which at this point is an ethnography of this subculture of people fighting for MTR across Appalachia and across the country. They are the voices that inspired a movement and energized the revolution. Three of our main subjects have passed away now. We didn't have the resources to finish it a couple years ago, and at a certain point we stopped apologizing for that and continued to gather the testimonies of the people.

We plant to tour with the film and develop a traveling road show. Go to similar communities and keep the ball rolling, keep building solidarities between impacted communities. As well as the communities that don’t know how they fit into the equation, there are a lot of people that have no idea that our lifestyles as American are directly linked to these processes of energy extraction.

What is the current state of the battle against MTR?

We celebrate victories when we can get it. For instance, having a permit for a big mine halted. Sometime we stop them in their tracks, sometimes we slow them down. The battle still rages. The hardest thing we have to overcome is that the coal industry has such a tight grip on the communities. The industry is a propaganda machine, it is just unbelievable. Coal is such a huge part of their culture and people are really sensitive to shutting down coal-mines. Even though MTR is different than traditional coal mining. The industry has pitted brother against brother. Some people call it The War on Coal , we call it The War on the People. The war is about people being exploited, neighbor against neighbor. The coal companies twist that language so that if you’re against coal you are against West Virginia.

Is there a solution, if they halted mining and take away the permits what would industries in that culture look like? How would people be able to survive economically?

That’s just it, there are not a lot of options in these areas, and economic diversity is a huge problem. As a people we need to address that coal is not infinitive and we need to come up with a responsible transition to an alternative form of renewable energies. We need the legislators in Appalachia to come together and create more economic diversity.

What are you most proud of?

When we were based in Chicago we stated a project called from the From the Holler to the Hood, we worked with folks in the Little Village and Pilsen communities in a coalition to shut down the oldest direst coal fires in the city. We were successful in that!

After, we brought delegation from Chicago down to WV, to meet up with community leaders there on MTR and then vice versa we brought community leaders from WV to tour Little Village and Pilsen. Each presented to each other. That probably was the proudest point in the entire experience, being involved and witnessing those communities come together and build an alliance and recognize that they need to stand in solidarity with each other.

Alongside testimonies what are you capturing to document this movement?

We capture a lot of barricades where people are trespassing. We do a lot of behind the scenes of how to organize. In Washington DC we surrounded the EPA building with 2,000 people and150 people sat down at the gates of the White House and were arrested there.

What is your stance on tree sitting and chaining oneself to a bulldozer? If you spend so much time organizing protests to be impactful, do you think these tactics are successful or are they just dramatic?

Some are more successful or impactful then others and it all depends on a wide array of variables. You don’t want to be too aggressive when it is not necessary, and you don’t want to look like happy go-lucky glades when you really need to be very assertive and serious. Every situation is different.

We organized an action called a Die In, we went to the JP Morgan Chase, who was one of the leading contributors of MTR. Our people came in incognito to the big bank headquarters. All of a sudden we ripped off our shirts exposing big stickers on our bodies about MTR.

TOPLESS AMERICA!

Yeah! And they lay down like we were dead and scattered across the entire lobby. That was a pretty intense action.

My wife Kat, who is my partner in this project, she was in a Congressional sit in with our main subjects from Appalachia. We sat down in Kentucky’s Congressmen Kyle Rodgers office with Terry Blanton, who I mentioned earlier. We refused to leave until we could talk with him. The congressmen refused to talk with us. It started very politely. You have to guage the way your attitude is, you want to be respective and you don’t want to come off as a bunch of hoodlums. But, he refused to meet with us, so sitting there quietly turned into giving testimonials, which turned into a little bit of chanting, which turned into singing. Kat with 7 people from that particular office (on this day there was congressional sit-ins in offices from Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky), folks from all of those offices including my wife were arrested.

Is getting arrested a badge of honor?

It’s not something that happens haphazardly. The group takes following protocol very seriously. Topless America wants to fall into the “We did this right” category.

So we knew this was coming. Actually, I was not feeling well and I knew I wasn’t well enough to go to jail. My wife stepped up; I never would have wanted to send my wife to jail. She wanted to stay and I said, “That’s up to you.” We joke that next time around it will be my turn.

It is a badge of honor! It’s not a crime, its part of something more. On the police report she was technically arrested for singing Amazing Grace.

Thank you Parson, I know it has been an uphill battle but what you do is very inspiring.

When you get down to it’s a complicated issue, bottom line, there is no excuse. We are poising our people, destroying our own land, so that the masses of the country can turn their lights. There is just no excuse; people are dying.

-Tori Terzakis

Long Exhibtion Review: Sabina Ott at the Cultural Center

Reechantment

Ott has created a mesmerizing excursion through a fantastical world of voluptuous objects. Larger-than-life Styrofoam sculptures beg you to listen, see and experience them. I am cognizant of my presence and the way I walk around and through the sculptures. The kinetic energy of the work suggests they are aware of my presence also. They are alive with sound, ticking clocks, electricity and plants. Ott investigates the relationship between things, between people and things, and between people and where they are in the world. “It’s how you become autonomous–how you become yourself in relation to all of these cultural signifiers and manners and ways of being,”says Ott in interview with Inside the Artist’s Kitchen. The world Ott creates exists in a state of flux. Your perception of each sculpture shifts after you experience the next one.

The work exists in three rooms. To say the ceilings in these rooms are tall is an understatement. The scale of the space and the sculptures transports you to an Alice-in-Wonderland state of mind. The space is filled with a series of gravity-defying sculptures suspended in mid air and heavy bolder like shapes that remind us of gravity. The room has a view of the treetops of Millennium Park. Nature is reflected inside the exhibit as well. The tension between the incorporated plants and synthetic material is both eerie and alluring.

“Here and there pink melon joy” is a robust sensory experience. The sculptures are explosions of molten shapes, fluorescent colors, lights and patterns. Rhythmic recordings by Joe Jeffers echo in the large rooms. Sound is incorporated as an audio patterns as well as an object signifier. In Song of Melon Joy I marching band beats resonate around the vignette of orange carpet, drum stands and speakers. Travelling to the second room you will see an overwhelming large-scale fountain. The fountain still suggests serenity, but it doesn’t function as a vessel for water, contrary to the repetitive “Drip. Drip. Drip” sound, which is coming from speakers that are visibly placed on the fountain’s first tier. Adjacent to the speakers is a microphone positioned as if the fountain was the performer. Plants perch along the fountain. A centered beam looks like a mountain begging to be climbed. It would be a triumphant climb, with a single red rose growing at the very top as your reward. A bolder-shaped object rests off to the side of fountain with a black rose blooming out of the crevices on the Styrofoam rock.

Ott’s work gravitates around notions of taste. “I really like the idea of things that are really grotesque and not tasteful, over-the-top, and extravagant,” says Ott in interview. “I really like the idea of proposing that bad taste is a political statement.” Her sculptures are not beautiful in the classical sense but they are alluring. The angelic color palette, in its fluorescent irony, is shocking to the system, but the magnitude of the sculptures and the world they transport you to is magnificant.

The journey is rooted (but doesn’t end) in a large pulsating room. The room is dark and text unwinds in beautiful chaos. The scrolling words break the planes of the three walls and encompass the traveler. The text regales transformational journeys such as The World is Round by Gertrude Stein and Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Drumming vibrates throughout the room, it is loud. You can feel the volume. Experiencing the text and sound is mesmerizing.

To exit the exhibit you must retrace your steps. You will see each object a final time through an evolved lens having viewed the entire show. Inside the Artist’s Kitchen, interviewers with Kristina Daignault & Michael Soto, talk to Ott about Gertrude Stein and this notion of irregular commonplace. “It’s the idea that you can have a house, and a painter will look at it in terms of colors, and an architect will look at it in lines and different people take away a different thing based on their backgrounds and experiences. “ And just like that back through the rabbit hole.

-Tori Tezakis

Short Exhibition Review: John Reblando

The Lost Dream

Jason Reblando’s New Deal Utopias re-investigates the Greenbelt Towns through a relevant, thought-provoking series of eerie imagery. Capturing the subject in a journalistic style. Reblando presents us with ghostly photographs examining what was originally a government experiment with model utopian towns that was part of the New Deal.

President Roosevelt created the three Greenbelt Towns in the 1930’s in response to the social and economic effects of the Great Depression. Conservative members of congress regarded his administration as controversial. As criticism grew, the Green Belt initiative recruited a committee to document the town’s success. The photographers were instructed to portray the pristine rows of houses, families strolling on newly paved sidewalks, lounging on lawn chairs, swimming in neighborhood pools and shopping at the cooperative groceries stores. Now, 76 years later, Reblando represents those same Greenbelt towns through photography once again. He positions us in each landscape at a distance. We are not a part of the community but instead a spectator viewing vacant public spaces or frozen moments of town life.

In 1930 the residents were carefully selected to represent a cross section of American society. Each family was chosen based on income levels and religious beliefs as a social experiment in demographic diversity. Even though African Americans helped build these cities, there were no African Americans allowed in the community until after 1950, a major flaw in the diversity plan. Reblando comments on the murky past in his photo of a group of African American boys sitting on a park table just on the outskirts of a field house.

As you walk through the City Gallery in Historic Water Tower where these overcast images are currently displayed, it should be noted that you are in government-run building. Questions of where or what government’s role in societies’ home and culture today are reflected in these Rockwellian landscapes.

-Tori Terzakis

Cultural Producer and Social Justice Activist Q&A: Jacob Yeung

“My name is Jacob Yeung and I am an emerging documentary photographer located in Chicago. I create photographic essays that set out to vignette the breadth of daily life within specific sets of cultures or locations...By engaging others through visual storytelling, I hope to encourage empathy, introspection, and curiosity.

I am currently working on a long term project within Chicago's Chinatown. ”

- Excerpted from Yeung’s Artist Statement.

Camila Vargas: Tell me about your trip to China

Jacob Yeung: This feels really egotistic, like talking about myself like this… I’m a fan of having conversations.

CV: It’s ok; I’ll tell you about my trip to Peru, you tell me about your trip to China.

JY: It all fell into place so perfectly, I was already working on the Chinatown project. That’s when I first started it.

CV: When was this?

JY: The spring of...I went to China in 2012.

CV: Ok tell me what lead you to this project and your trip

JY: This is how the whole thing worked. I took John White’s class in winter of 2011 and I had sort of awakening of what I wanted to do…This feels really egotistic (giggles)...So in John White’s class [White teaches Photojournalism at Columbia College Chicago] I basically figured out what kind of pictures I want to take and it was more leaning towards photojournalism than documentary stuff, which is what I do now. And in 2012 the spring semester I ended up doing documentary stuff because that’s what the class [I was taking then] was about. I was super charged and that’s when I first started doing Chinatown.

CV: Why do you do what you do? What’s your motivation?

JY: I do street photography because I love...I love, it sounds fucked up but I love the idea of just going out there and hunting. And you don't have to say “hunting”...

CV: Oh I will say hunting

JY: You can say it’s having the ability to capture in a way that’s elegant and telling of the subject, if only just a little. I’ve always considered myself a Chinese outsider looking in within my own culture. Because, I grew up in Michigan, we moved to a neighborhood that was mainly African American and we lived in project housing, we grew up poor...This is all irrelevant…

CV: No, it gives me an idea of what brought you to do what you do

JY: ...we grew up poor, Chinese outsiders within our own community. My parents worked all the time and you grow up with the neighborhood, you know? The neighborhood raises you, you know?

CV: Yeah, I agree. The environment where you grow up has a big influences on who you are

JY: Obviously parents have to have some influence but...yeah this made me really love my friends. I dunno, my point is that I’ve always been the, you know, the token Asian guy, or whatever, but at the same time I didn’t have enough, like Chinese influence to really keep the language and like, learning about, going in depth about things I didn’t understand, that I still don’t understand about being Chinese.

CV: Are you first or second generation?

JY: First generation. My parents met in Hong Kong, my mom got knocked up, had my sister there, move to the US and pretty much a year later I was born. And I learned all this through pictures. I don’t have conversations with my mom like, “how you guys got here,” like never. My mom has a way of deflecting history in a way, or says it in a way that I can’t understand it. There’s a huge language barrier so...I don’t know how I got on this…but...

CV: No, no. It’s ok, is the background story. So how you came about exploring this, your community then? Because it sounds like you kept getting pushed away from your Chinese background.

JY: Yeah. I think it was when...I started to miss my mom here in Chicago. I started to developing an interest here when I was missing my mom and just all that familiar cooking and getting Dim Sum and...you know, going to Chinatown reminded me of [that]. In Michigan I would never hear people speaking Chinese. And I [am] in this metropolitan city and I had the opportunity with photojournalism combined with documentary to do work based on this culture that I’ve been avoiding my whole life.

CV: How do you approach your subjects--if you do choose to approach them?

JY: Yeah definitely, I do. They’re more approachable if they’re kids, obviously, because they speak the language (English) and they’re more prone to say yes because, you know, it seems fun to them. Hmmm...older people, there’s an ethical debate that I struggle with, when I take street photographs. Because I never want to (long pause...) hurt anybody with my camera.

CV: Let’s talk about your new project, and the grant you’re applying for at the Chinatown library.

JY: I’m applying to this grant. I’m going to approach things completely different, it’s gonna be all highly stylized almost, like, it’s gonna be completely staged. I want to work with people of the community to make these really loud...one image that I’m imagining is with loud colors with Chinese seniors just laughing, having a fun time. In Chinatown you see all these patterns, they’re very Chinese, and they are really...I don’t know I’ve always noticed that and I want to incorporate them in the pictures.

CV: So what made you change? You were taking documentary images, that have a separation between you and the subject and this sounds that you are zooming in and in a way “confronting” your subjects.

JY: Because I’ve done so much street photography; I’m sick of being an outsider looking in and I want to be, I want to be friends with these people, make long lasting connections. You know, I want to be able to take their picture in the future, get their story, have dinner over their house (big laugh.) I want to be totally immersive. And my work right now still feels like I’m a tourist.

CV: What is your role in this community? What do you want to contribute to them?

JY: I only contribute to the community through pictures. I want to contribute with; genuine relationship building. The process of this project will require me to work with a bunch of organizations and, I feel like we’re all gonna collaborate to do something really wonderful for the community. Have this project be an umbrella that all these people can point towards and we all work together on this. Each different organization, all these different business members, we found the people to put in this pictures and is going to live (the project) right in the heart and center of Chinatown. I think it’s something that will inspire people, and be something different.

CV: It would definitely be. Documenting the Chinatown community in a personal level.

JY: You go down to Chinatown and you see the murals, they’re the public art and they are all painted mural base, and very safe you know? I want us to take a more conceptual, not to put down their mural art but I want to bring a contemporary, conceptual idea, an experimental process in documentary photography, because it’s still documentary I’m still pulling people from the community out and documenting them. Thanks, I usually never get to talk about this, and it helps because you get things in perspective.

~ Camila Vargas

Short review: Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938

Just like René Magritte does in his work, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938, invites you to rethink our everyday surroundings, everyday objects, and your everyday life. Walking through the dark walls and; dimly lit hallways where Magritte’s work hang, one can only concentrate on the bizarre imagery display. Experimental in its time; and very influential, Magritte’s oeuvre aimed, in the artist’s words, to “challenge the real world.” The Treachery of Images for example, with its baffling message "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" underneath a drawing of a pipe. It makes the viewer question reality and what we are looking at. On a more profound level, we can think that in reality what we are seeing is not a pipe, is a painting of a pipe-- therefore it is true that ceci n'est pas une pipe.

The 100 different paintings, collages and drawings send a clear message, (to me at least) confusion. There is transformation and displacement in Magritte’s work, as well as a constant lack of balance between truth and fiction, reality and surreality. The paintings ask to question what we consider to be “real” and challenge us to think outside the box and look for a deeper meaning behind these wonderful art pieces.

~ Camila Vargas

Exhibition Review: Phantoms in the Dirt at MoCP

An enormous wall covered in blackened eucalyptus bark is the first piece to greet you at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP). This installation, Let the shadows in to play their part by Harold Mendez immediately puts the visitor in contact with nature, and the “material world” that is under our feet. As curator Karsten Lund puts it “a few things become clearer as one keeps looking. All the works embody certain ways of grappling with the rough material world, directing attention to elemental matter- wood and iron, water and dirt, or rugged, sparsely inhabited landscapes.”

Jeremy Bolen, Plot M #1, 2014

The sixteen artists that are part of Phantoms in the Dirt, arouse questions and second guesses with their very different art works; not only about their technique but also the meaning behind it and how it all ties together. To be quite honest, the show made little sense to me until I read Lund’s extended essay, which makes it unfortunate if you choose not to read it or don’t have access to it. This being said, the pieces themselves are beautiful, and one can’t help but to spend time with one and each of them. They do evoke (now that I know what the big idea is) “the world of matter” (the dirt beneath us.) All of the artists in this show make different observations about the “dirt” around us and through their work, try to show their understanding of a material world and the layers of meanings of it. Jeremy Bolden and his Plot M series for example, examine the radiation left behind underneath a forest preserve outside of Chicago, where the first nuclear reactor is buried. In this series is flabbergasted to realize that after so many years that radiation still there, and makes one think about the history of the those times and what lead afterwards.

Richard Mosse, Sugar Ray 2012.

The visitor encounters three different mediums of expression in this exhibit, which is unexpected since the museum showcases primarily photographs, they are: film, sculpture and photography. They all are visual evidence of these phantoms in the dirt, such as pollution and radiation, and show more than one could see with a naked eye. Richard Mosse’s Sugar Ray for instance is this enchanting pink landscape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he accomplished to create by using an infrared film capable of capturing a spectrum of light that is invisible to the human eye. It is astonishing and merry, but in way a sad irony given the political and economical circumstances of this country. Which brings us back to the different layers of meaning all of these art pieces, and the exhibit itself, are trying to convey in the visitor.

Like Lund said “the ground beneath our feet isn’t necessarily neutral or inert; like so many things dirt can contain and carry much more than one can see.” Moving up and down the three story museum, in and out of the different rooms devoted to this exhibition, we are always surrounded by dirt, and it is impressive that Phantoms in the Dirt can manifested and elevated something so ordinary as this matter into something so beautiful. It is sad that my brain couldn’t convey and understand what is happening in this small museum, what the big idea behind all of it is, but once understood the stories behind these works, that sometimes are just out of sight, are completely extraordinary.

~ Camila Vargas

Ode to a Small Museum: Henry Darger Room Collection of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art

The almost perfectly replicated room of Henry Darger at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art; transports visitors to the time and space where Darger used to make his drawings. We are submerged in his world thanks to the skillful installation of his furniture and his unusual collection of artifacts, which includes stacks of National Geographic magazines piled on the floor, art supplies scattered on his desk, baskets filled with balls of twine and religious objects arranged over his original fireplace. We encounter a lot of information in a small room (its original size was 17’6’’ x 13’9’’ x 9’8’’) that tells a story, not about his work, but about Darger, the man. Hanging on the walls are some of his art-works, shown without labels. We can detach ourselves from a gallery setting and instead, project ourselves into the place and environment where he made them.

The main purpose of this installation was not to recreate Darger’s room exactly, “but rather,” the curator tell us, “to evoke the intimate scale and dense setting Darger’s combined home and studio...imitative of the room’s original feelings.” Impressions of these feelings differ from visitor to visitor. I got a cold, eerie, almost sad feeling from it, which I found curious because those are also the feelings his artwork evokes in me. In this way, I could relate the space to the story behind Dager’s work, which tells the story of seven girls that fight to free child slaves. A sense of voyeurism is always present, especially when you view the space from a distance, behind a red velvet rope. This puts the visitor in the position of an unwelcome outsider. Like spies, we peer into Darger’s room, looking for clues to help us understand him, to see his sadness and loneliness.

In a different space, such as a large museum, this sense of closeness to the artist’s working environment wouldn’t be possible since, it would be more about his work and legacy rather than a study of who Darger as a person and his process as an artist. The fact that is a tight, dark room full of the artist’s things, with little to no writing beside the artifacts and furniture, makes it all feel so much more personal. Instead of the institution showing us where to look and what to admire, explaining what each object means and telling us why is important, visitors are allowed to make up their own stories, and their own feelings and sensations to guide their viewing of the space.

~ Camila Vargas

Rapid Response Collecting

Public telephone booth

Steel, glass and payphone

37 x 37 inches square

Phone booths have had a significant impact on both American culture and the cultures of other nations. Today, however pay phone booths are nearly obsolete.

The telecommunications industry must adapt to new technologies. In Shanghai, old phone booths are being transformed into wifi “hot spots.” They’re also being use to display advertisements. It make sense: just because people no longer use telephone booths doesn’t mean they don’t walk past them.

Traditional Syrian wedding dress

One third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18, and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15. There are several reasons why parents marry their daughters as such a young age; including religion, wealth, and increasingly violence. In Syria, for example, many females traditionally marry young, but the ritual has been intensified since the start of the war. Families are marrying off their daughters early for economic reasons, as well as to avoid harassment of their vulnerable single daughters in the refugee camps.

Jack White’s Lazaretto record

Vinyl record

12.5 x 12.5 inches

Jack White has set a US record for the biggest one-week vinyl sales: since the industry began tracking the data in 1991.

In the late 90’s, record labels shuttered their LP pressing plants, since the medium for releasing music was changing. But today, thanks largely to an audience of record collectors and college-age audience, every major label and many smaller ones are releasing vinyl records alongside CD’s and digital downloads. This has led to the establishment of new pressing plants, and an increase in retail record stores and accessories shops (that sell turntables, speakers, and other audio equipment.) Even local machine shops are benefiting from the reappearance of this LP industry; these shops have deals with the record companies to make replacement parts for the very old press machines.

~ Camila Vargas

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