On the Line
Can Laundry be beautiful? meaningful? What might clothes on a line teach us about beauty, culture, social class or our relationship to the environment? What about relations between men and women, or across generations? The Artists, dancers, musicians and spoken word performers of On the Line explore these questions in their art. They draw on the work of researchers who have recorded the laundry stories of people across Riverside, then seek to encourage dialogue by staging pop-up exhibitions across the city.
The project has developed a unique format for transdisciplinary collaboration to enables artists and anthropologists to generate new work through public engagement. Under the direction of UCR Professor, Susan Ossman, this NEA funded program involved over 90 local, national and international artists and anthropologists in exhibitions, performances, seminars and participatory interventions across Riverside. Visual artists, dancers, musicians, writers and anthropologists had an opportunity to draw on an archive of “laundry stories” developed at these events to generate new work, fostering further dialogue at subsequent encounters.
Director: Susan Ossman
Organizing Committee: Felipe Alvarez, Patrick Brien, Ariane Dalla Dia, Stephen James, Edith Macias, Frank Ramos, Sue Roginski, Susana Villegas.
On the Line is made possible thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts , the support of the the Riverside Public Library, the University of California, Riverside and the Riverside Arts Council .