It’s another installment of Spirituality and Politics with Marielena Ferrer. Joining us today is… Lexa Walsh an artist, cultural worker and experience maker. Her upbringing as the only bad athlete in a family of fifteen in the Philadelphia suburbs, and coming of age in the Bay Area post punk cultural scene of the 1990’s informs her interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities. With a background in both sculpture and social practice, Walsh makes site specific projects, exhibitions, publications and objects, using an array of materials including ceramics and textiles, employing social engagement, institutional critique, and radical hospitality to question hierarchies, power and value. She recently relocated from Oakland, CA to the Hudson Valley.
The In Between: Tea Talks are series’ of intimate facilitated discussions over home cooked meals that bring together conflicting populations of artists, activists, workers, Veterans, civilians, and others in a hospitable environment so each may share their positions in a safe yet open and critical dialogue. The goals of the project are to:
- Complicate the current good vs, evil/us vs. them narrative while eliciting understanding and extracting nuances from all sides.
- Engage in local micro politics while placing these issues in the larger current political landscape.
- Create a space for hospitable democracy.
- Share understanding about issues affecting our communities to a broader audience.
Walsh founded the experimental music and performance venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge, and co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra. Walsh worked for many years as a curator and administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose team created radical curatorial projects to foster cross-cultural understanding. She founded Oakland Stock & Soup for Social & Racial Justice, and the Bay Area Contemporary Art Archive. She is a graduate of Portland State University’s Art & Social Practice MFA program and was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum’s Education department. She was a recipient of Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award, the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant and was a de Young Artist Fellow. Walsh has participated in projects, exhibitions and performances at Apexart, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, FOR-SITE, Grand Central Art Center, Kala Art Institute, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, NIAD, Oakland Museum of California, SFMOMA, Smack Mellon, Walker Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and has done several international artist residencies, tours and projects in Europe and Asia.
Lexa and Marielena are co-hosting a Tea Talk at Unison Arts on Saturday, March 1st from 3-5pm. There’s also a Destroy to Create event happening at Unison this Saturday, February 15th. More info and to RSVP here!
Here are your Full Moon Vibes!
Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.
Our show music is from Shana Falana!
Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org
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