FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Barbra Ramos, National Communications Director
[email protected]
323-813-4272
LOS ANGELES– AF3IRM, a transnational feminist, anti-imperialist organization, presents Recuerdo / Alaala / ذاكرة / Remembrance: Earrings of Shadow and Light, the first traveling art exhibition of its kind. This exhibition pays homage to the millions of missing, murdered, and trafficked women and girls across the globe and features works from local and international artists, jewelry makers, musicians, and community members.
Across borders, earrings are ornaments that have been worn from pre-colonial times to the present with various purposes and significance, and in Recuerdo / Alaala / ذاكرة / Remembrance, they hold deep meaning. Earrings are typically worn in pairs; however, participants were asked to create just one earring as a tribute to a particular woman or issue. The single earring not only honors women’s histories and experiences, but sheds light onto those whose stories have gone unheard, whose lives have been taken, and whose voices have been erased.
The exhibition seeks to remember women – not only with the visual story told through the earring displayed, but also through the void present within the incomplete pair. As transnational/women of color, we are all too familiar with the absence and disappearance of the lives and stories of women. The works on display seek to tell the stories and honor the women that history, the mainstream media, and so many within our society refuse to acknowledge. We bear witness to all of our sisters through this illumination of the earring displayed and the loss portrayed in its shadow. We know there is much to be learned from and found within the brilliance and darkness of women’s existence.
The opening for Recuerdo / Alaala / ذاكرة / Remembrance will be on Friday, April 15, 2016 at 6:30pm in Chinatown at 977 ½ Chung King Road, Los Angeles and will travel across the country. AF3IRM is proud to have brought together a wide range of artists and creators for this exhibition. The Los Angeles show will include almost 40 pieces by participants including jewelry makers Nena SoulFly, Native Sol, Noelle Reyes of Mi Vida Boutique, and ilaments; media artist and ethnobotanist T’uy’t’tanat – Cease Wyss of the Squamish First Nation; storyteller Tanzila Ahmed of the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast; world-renowned Chilean musician Ana Tijoux; and Chicana Artivist Martha Gonzalez; as well as one of the founders and several artists from Heart of Art, a space for women, queer, and transgender folks. The various works will showcase the powerful artistic expressions of and responses to the transnational struggle of women and the fight for genuine liberation.
The Los Angeles showing of the exhibition was coordinated and organized by the local LA chapter of AF3IRM. AF3IRM is a national organization of transnational feminist women of color with nine chapters across the country. Founded in 1989, AF3IRM’s diverse, multi-ethnic membership recognizes the intersectionality of our struggles and is dedicated to the struggle of women’s liberation and the fight against oppression in all its forms. With the slogan “A Woman’s Place is at the Head of the Struggle,” we firmly believe in the absolute necessity of women’s revolutionary resistance.
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