Speakers

Suzanne Lacy is an Internationally known conceptual/performance artist whose work includes
large scale performances on social themes and
urban issues. Since 1970, her work has
addressed a broad range of social and political
themes, including violence against women,
racism, incarceration, homelessness, poverty,
medical care, education, and world peace. Her
artworks take the form of installations, social
process, writing, photography, and performance,
and are often expansive collaborations with large
numbers of individuals. Most of her major works
are documented by video or television and include
media literacy and analysis.

For the past seven years, Lacy has developed a major body of work in Oakland, California, developing projects with public school teenagers that are extensively covered by local and national media. These projects create a forum for youth to express their concerns to broad audiences. In addition, during the 1990’s Lacy has worked on major projects in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Vancouver, and Medellin, Colombia.

Lacy is a proponent through art and writing for
activism, audience engagement, and artists' roles in
shaping the public agenda. Lacy has published articles on public theory in Performing Art Journal, Ms. Magazine, Art Journal, High Performance, and the Public Art Review, among others. She has exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in London, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, and the New Museum in New York, and her work has been reviewed in Artforum, The Drama Review, Art in America, High Performance, the L.A. Times, Village Voice, and numerous books. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Arts International, the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, the Surdna Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

	Suzanne Lacy Videotapes
	AUTO : BODY (scheduled for completion, Spring 1999) Bedford Hills Prison, New York, 30 minutes, color. This half-hour broadcast quality videotape explores the long term effects of family and other forms of violence on the lives of women. Laboring under the hot August sun, fifteen women inmates from a maximum security prison in upstate New York work with artist Suzanne Lacy to transform three wrecked cars into sculptures, moving testimonials to the incredible violence they experienced in their lives. They learn to use power tools for the first time, but as they work on the cars, memories unexpectedly return. The demolished cars look like battered and bruised bodies. Decayed interiors evoke rape scenes. Front fenders with bashed-in headlights remind of being chased by a car without lights. Surprisingly, in an era when prison movies and television news portray hardened and often brutal inmates, these women are compassionate and astonishingly wise. They become our teachers as we see through their eyes the impact of sustained abuse, including their eventual incarceration. This video is compelling because of the women themselves - women who are in prison for years, some for life, whose horrific memories they would rather not recall, who live without their families and must see their children grow up without them. At the end of the videotape they prepare to send their three wrecked cars into the world - the Abuse Car, the Brick Wall Car, and the Healing Car - in the hopes that their stories will educate us to the true impact of violence against women. Executive Producer, Suzanne Lacy; Director and Producer, Virginia Cotts; Editor, Michelle Baughan.
	SUFFER THE CHILDREN (working title, scheduled for Spring, 1999) Cleveland, Ohio, 12 minutes, color Third in a series of installations about very young children and their counselors who are interviewed at a family violence center in Cleveland. As they intently draw scenes of their homes, neighborhoods, and family, children as young as two years old reveal the impact of family violence on their lives. The drawings are translated onto the flat white surface of a wrecked station wagon that is installed outside the Cleveland Center of Contemporary Art. Executive Producer, Suzanne Lacy; Editor, Michelle Baughan.
	UNDER CONSTRUCTION: A PUBLIC ART PROJECT (1998) Vancouver, 48 minutes, color. This tape has not yet been aired or premiered. Two hundred teenage girls in Vancouver, Canada are the participants in a public performance that culminated a two year public art project on the lives and often hidden experiences of young women. Under Construction took place in a live construction site in downtown Vancouver, a city whose skyline changes almost daily with redevelopment and new construction. In an urban territory exclusive to men, these young women whispered secrets to each other that revealed lives that are not, as we often imagine, "picture perfect." The girls spoke frankly about their lives, bringing up issues that now, twenty years after the inception of the feminist movement, are still pervasive and destructive. The project was two years in the making, and was led by a group of 30 extraordinary high school girls who assisted in the final performance planning with artist Suzanne Lacy and several Canadian artists. Set against the construction site and the audience of 3,000, this videotape explores what it means to grow up as a female in Canada. Executive Producer, Suzanne Lacy; Producer/Director, Darlene Haber.
	UNDERGROUND (1993) Pittsburgh, 12 minute color. Non-exclusive distribution by Video Databank and Terra Nova Films. The car is a metaphor rich with contemporary associations. In the 1991 movie "Thelma and Louise," two women drove toward a seemingly inevitable destiny. The final scene with its desperate leap into the void was an image well understood by those who work with battered women: in a life circumscribed by violence, the road to safety may involve a change of identity, and the family car, and a ride on America's new underground railway. "Auto: On the Edge of Time" was a multi-site public art installation on family violence, spanning two years and several sites across the country. Wrecked cars were re-configured by Lacy and artist collaborators, working with women and children who had suffered greatly at the hands of loved ones. Linked to each other through their experiences, women from a domestic violence shelter in Pittsburgh, a family violence program at Bedford Hills Prison, children from shelters in Niagara Falls and Cleveland, teenage girls in Oakland, and politicians on Staten Island all collaborated. In this first of three videotape documentaries on the project, women in Pittsburgh create an installation called "Underground," in honor of the history of resistance to slavery legendary to the region. The installation featured 180 feet of railroad tracks with a poem inscribed on the wood ties. Along the tracks were three wrecked cars and, at the end, a phone booth where people could leave stories, talk to a counselor, or listen to women who had escaped. Executive Producer, Suzanne Lacy; Editor, Mia Houlberg.
	IN MOURNING AND IN RAGE (1978) Los Angeles, 30 minutes, black and white video. Not currently in distribution. One of the first artists’ media event performances of the seventies, this performance critiqued news coverage of the Hillside Strangler serial murders. This one hour event was covered by all local news stations and is considered a model for media intervention through public art. It is featured on the cover of two books and is frequently published in art history and criticism books. Produced by Annette Hunt and Jerri Allyn at the Woman’s Building, Los Angeles.

	Works on Violence Against Women Suzanne Lacy pioneered the exposure of violence against women in the arts, as well as in popular culture, during the 1970’s. In large scale performance events that involved political lobbying, media events, and grass roots organizing, Lacy worked with collaborator Leslie Labowitz on projects that are heralded as models of activism within the arts. These projects mobilized people from various fields to work with artists to develop comprehensive strategies alerting people to the incidence of violence and the connections between various forms of violence, such as domestic abuse, rape, and incest. Three Weeks in May exposed the extent of reported rapes in Los Angeles; From Reverence to Rape to Respect related exploitation of women with violence in Las Vegas; In Mourning and In Rage demonstrated connections between media coverage, serial murders, and activism; and Take Back the Night revealed the Madonna/whore dichotomy that inspires pornography. In the early 90’s Lacy again returned to the subject of violence against women, this time with the multi-sited national installation series, Auto: On the Edge of Time. In this work she explored domestic abuse from the vantage point of abused women, prisoners, children, and men. She plans a premier of her videotape, Auto:Body at the Kitchen in October, 2000.
		Roof Is on Fire
	Rape Is... 1972 An artist's book (1000 ed. offset printed) on the events leading up to and after sexual assault. This parody of the "Happiness is..." books was the first feminist artists boook on this subject.
	Ablutions, 1972. A performance collaboration with Judy Chicago, Aviva Rahmani, and Sandra Orgel, in Los Angeles. The first time a feminist perspective on rape was used in contemporary performance, the 1 hour piece featured first person narratives of women who had been raped and actions with vats of blood, eggs, clay and animal organs.
	Crime, Quilts, and Art 1976-8 A community-based project that resulted in a series of installations with elderly women residents of a housing development in Watts in South Central Los Angeles. The project included an exhibition of quilts and photographic montages, a performance about risks entailed in riding a public bus in Watts on Saturday night, and an installation evoking the memory of Lacy¹s friend and collaborator Evalina Newman.
	In Mourning and In Rage 1977 With Leslie Labowitz, this media event was a performance made for television news. Critiquing news reporting of the Hillside Strangler murders, this one hour event was covered by local and statewide networks. Ist remains a model for media intervention and activist art, and is featured on the cover of two books. Video available.
	Three Weeks in May 1977 This installation and "performance structure" was a multi-sited action that took place over three weeks in Los Angeles. The actions centered around an installation in City Hall documenting daily police rape reports. It was widely covered by the media, and its three week citywide series of events brought rape to publicawareness.
	The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron 1977 Site specific performance with Kathleen Chang, this event took place on a sailing schooner and on Angel Island, exploring the relationship between two turn of the century women, a missionary and a Chinese immigrant. One of the focuses was on illegal trafficking in girls.
	From Reverence to Rape to Respect, 1978 With Leslie Labowitz, this ten day performance structure explored the relationship between the exploitation of women’s imagery and violence against women in Las Vegas.
	There are Voices in the Desert 1978 Installation on violence toward showgirls and women in Las Vegas, whose bodies are often abandoned in the desert. Part of "From Reverence to Rape…"
	Take Back the Night 1978 Performance with Leslie Labowitz, in the San Francisco pornography district, with a virgin/whore float and 2000 women.
	Underground 1993 With Carol Kumada, this interactive installation on domestic violence was designed for the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. A 180 foot railroad track with a poem engraved leads to a phone booth. Three wrecked cars reveal aspects of abuse. Video available.
	Doing Time 1994 Laboring under the hot August sun, fifteen women inmates from a maximum security prison in upstate New York work with Lacy to transform three wrecked cars into sculptures, moving testimonials to the incredible violence they experienced in their lives.Video available
	The Children's Car 1994 Children in a domestic violence shelter workshop drew their experiences for this car sculpture that was exhibited as part of the "Outside the Frame" exhibition in Cleveland. Video available
	Auto: On the Edge of Time 1994 Six cars made in Pittsburgh and Bedford Hills are part of this three week installation for Art Park in a Niagara Falls gas station. The installation served as a site for organizing and public events.
	Under Construction 1998 Two hundred teenage girls in Vancouver, Canada are the participants in a public performance that culminated a two year public art project on the lives and often hidden experiences of young women. Under Construction took place in a live construction site where young women whispered secrets to each other that revealed lives that are not, as we often imagine, "picture perfect," and include pervasive threat of violence.