Hi everyone,

I'm posting some long overdue photos of the blanket/throw I wove over the course of the show in September. I also wanted to let you know that that the woven items and video will be on display again for the first two weeks of December at Thalia Theater in Queens (http://www.thaliatheatre.org) . I am honored to have been asked to participate in this exhibit showing in conjunction with the play, Fuente Ovejuna-Ciudad Juarez. There is more info about the upcoming show here: http://www.thecrossborderproject.com/blog/

Also, I've sent out most of the yarn and photos. If you haven't received something, it means I do not yet have your address or am waiting to hear from you about which item you would like. I will put things in the mail as soon as I hear from you.

All the best
Tali

Hi everyone,

As the kickstarter campaign comes to an end, I just wanted to send one more note of thanks for your participation and support. Over the next few days Ill be reaching out to those of you who requested yarn, pillows, or scarves to find out your preferences and make sure I have the necessary shipping info. My plan is get everything into the mail by mid October at the latest.

All the best,
Tali

I just came home from de-installing to find that we have reached the kickstarter goal. I cannot thank you enough for your support! This has been a very intense project for me to work on over the last few months and it is your interest and funding that has made this a possibility.

Yesterday, shortly before I finished the blanket (photos soon), an NYU professor brought his class over to see the full exhibit and hear a bit about the piece. His class has been studying war through the lens of literature and I was quite honored that he found this to be a worthwhile addition.

Thank you again!
Tali

One more day left of the show. The cloth for the blanket I have been weaving is almost complete. I'll take it off the loom tomorrow and stitch the two panels together. Then on Wednesday everything comes down.

It’s been really wonderful to have support from all of you - in the form of contributions but also visits to the gallery and words of support. There are 6 days left in this kickstarter campaign, and as you know, this is an all or nothing deal. The project is 78% funded which means, to put it crudely, that Ill need 15 more people to donate $15... or two more people interested in keeping one of the pillows from the show. If you know of anyone who might be interested in this project I would really appreciate you passing this along. The $1000 from this campaign will go to cover the expenses of producing this show.

It’s been an intense experience for me working in the gallery- more so than I was fully expecting. While this particular piece is about hope and possibility as much as it is about revealing violence, many of the other works in the exhibit are direct in their representations of trauma: a portrait of a woman's face assembled from electronics parts (like those made in the factories along the border); small packets of clipped hair hanging as a divider to evoke the individual victims; and a video that plays on a loop listing the names of women victims of the femicide and how they died. In my updates to you so far I have been trying to focus on the process of the production of this piece and the metaphors embedded in the materials, but I realize that I have been soaking in these images of trauma and wanted to share that with you as well.

As I mentioned early on, it is my hope that the objects I have dyed and woven find homes and lives beyond this exhibition. And I wish that I were able to simply give everything away...

A quick correction to the schedule for "Disposable: Ciudad Juarez and the War on Women." The artist talk, originally announced for Thursday is actually tomorrow, Wednesday the 15th at 6:30 pm. It follows a play on the same topic, One Journey: Stitching Stories Across the Mexican “American” Border.

About the play:

One Journey: Stitching Stories Across the Mexican “American” Border is a woman’s coming of age border story that takes place in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. This play is loosely based on personal experiences both of family and community members that have given their insight on border dynamics that have affected them. Through the progression of the story the narrator begins to question the politics of the border, especially when the severity of policies begin to affect her family through violence, deportation and femicide amongst other issues she witnesses. The goal of this performance project is to shed light on border realities and how people are affected by U.S./Mexico economics and immigration policies today.

About The Artist: Yadira De La Riva is a poet/playwright/performer/educator from the U.S./Mexico borderland of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a B.A. in American Studies with two minors in Theater Arts and Latin American Studies. In 2002 she was an intern for Theater of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she had the privilege of working with Augusto Boal and directors of CTO-Rio. Yadira has worked with artists such as Josephina Lopez, Violeta Luna, Octavio Solis and Don Williams and has performed in various multicultural community venues throughout the Bay Area, California. She has also taught theater workshops for young people in California, Mexico, Cuba and Brazil and currently teaches in various schools throughout NYC. Yadira recently obtained her Master’s Degree in Artivism: Performance as a means of Cultural Resistance, at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she was a Newington-Cropsey Fellow. As her thesis she presented a one-woman show One Journey: Stitching Stories Across the Mexican “American” Border, which was performed as part of the Emerging Identities Solo Performance Collaborative, Emerging Artist Theater: One Woman Standing Theater Festival and Gallatin’s Master’s Thesis Showcase in Spring 2010 in New York City. Yadira is an intellectually fierce and multi-faceted performer whose passion is to create/perform/produce performances that represent and empower marginalized voices nationally and internationally.

Also a few photos of some of the other work in the exhibit. (Amia Yokoyama, Hayden Dunham, Chris Nolan)