Overview
This installation and interactive, community-driven intervention, created by New York based artist Julia Mandle, seeks to mend wounds caused by America's abuse of civil rights at a turning point in our country's policy on the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay.
Overwhelmingly moved by Jean-Marc Bouju’s heart-wrenching photograph of a hooded Iraqi detainee at the start of America’s invasion covering the eyes of his young son, Julia initiated Fabrication of Blindness (2007) at The Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, creating a growing dark cloud of black hoods to explore her own sense of blindness, remorse, guilt, and powerlessness related to the US occupation of Iraq. Julia states, “I have come to believe that it might only be when we feel the painful reality of what our country has caused – and stay with it, not turn a blind eye – that we will be inspired to truly act and change course. I believe that art can play an instigating role.”
As America begins to negotiate the aftermath of actions in Guantanamo Bay, Julia seeks to connect the actions of dissenters with the voices of detainees through the launch of Fabricating Rain at Transformer. This creative action of hand-embroidering detainee-written narratives and poetry onto hoods made of U.S. military issue sandbags, will expand the Fabrication of Blindness installation at Transformer. Audiences are invited to participate in scheduled Fabricating Rain embroidery circles, or stop by during regular gallery hours to contribute to the installation. Embroidery takes approximately two hours. Fabrication of Blindness/Fabricating Rain will go on to be exhibited at New York City's Crossing the Line festival, September 2009, and in Paris.
Julia Mandle is the recent recipient of a NYFA Fellowship in Performance Art and numerous awards, including her earliest grant from Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, and later from The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, New York State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also been awarded recent artist’s residencies at Yaddo and Weir Farm Trust. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Williams College and a Master of Arts at the Gallatin School of New York University.
Fabrication of Blindness is presented in partnership with J Mandle Performance. This work was initiated through a commission from The Baryshnikov Arts Center and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Fabricating Rain is produced in part from the generous production support from King’s Fountain.
Images by J Mandle and Kevin Rogers.
