What I am doing right now…
The 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is on the horizon and with it an opportunity to revisit Voices of 9.11. From 2002-2003 we collected over 550 video testimonies in NYC, Shanksville, Washington DC and inside the Pentagon. I am deeply grateful to the many people who shared their stories with us.
Please view the original Voices of 9.11 testimonies here.
There is a new documentary based on the project, Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11 by Bjørn Johnson + David Belton which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and be broadcast on MSNBC/Peacock September 8th, 11th + 12th without commercial interruption.
It’s the fight of our lives in the streets + on the plains.
Looking forward to seeing you in the streets!
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See You In the Streets
Book (2016)
American Book Award Winner (2017)
What makes it possible for people to move from the inner realm of thought, dream or feeling to the exterior world of public action?
See You in the Streets offers an exuberant perspective on an art practice which explodes out the boundaries of traditional mediums to create experiences of agency as an incitement to individual and social transformation.
Voices of 9.11
A People's Archive (2002 - 2003)
Voices of 9.11 is a collection of over 500 video testimonies recorded in 2002-2003 in New York City, Shanksville, PA, Washington D.C. and the Pentagon. At a time when language to describe the event was still being formed, the project was explicitly designed to give each individual agency over the story of their own lived experience.
Chalk
Public Intervention (2004 - present)
On 25 March 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire took the lives of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women and girls, and galvanized a movement for social and economic justice.
Each year since 2004, on the anniversary of the infamous blaze, volunteers fan out across the city to inscribe in chalk the names and ages of the Triangle dead in front of their former homes. The chalk will wash away but the following year we return, insisting on the memory of these lost young workers.
Tikkun Olam
Interactive Installation (2020-2021)
Solo exhibition at Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim 8 November 2020 – 28 February 2021 curated by Muriel Meyer.
Through animation, photographs and found objects, Tikkun Olam is a walking cinema of the experience of moving to Germany as a Jewish person, the rise of Trump and facing uncomfortable questions about Israel/Palestine.
146 Workers
Public Intervention (2021)
A collaboration for the 2021 virtual union commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The video includes voices of essential workers and Triangle family members. The story of the fire + the 1982 Chinatown garment workers strike. Music and 146 workers, organizers, compassionate public servants, artists and friends, each holding the name of one of the workers.
Pandemic Postcard
Social Intervention (2020)
How to digest the news in a pandemic?
Cut it up + revise
(more soon)
Immerwährende Verwandlung
Interactive Installation (2019)
An interactive cabinet of wonders created from the collections of the University of Hamburg.
Gaza Ghetto
Public Intervention (2014 | 2018 | 2021)
A response to Operation Protective Edge/the destruction of Gaza, summer 2014.
Re-up for the 2018 Great March of Return
Forbidden Words
Public Intervention (2017)
"The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget."
-Washington Post (15 December 2017)
Alice in Berlin
Interactive Installation (2012)
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards - Lewis Carroll
Alice in Berlin slyly evokes our fantasy of childhood innocence to lead the audience on a hallucinatory trip into today's global chaos. Each scene of the interactive installation builds on the audiences physical participation to question our place in history and individual accountability.
Zhanaozen
Interactive Documentary (2012)
Commissioned by theater director Bulat Atabayev of Kazakhstan, Zhanaozen was created for the one year anniversary of the massacre of striking miners. The interactive documentary reacts to the viewers’ physical movement to upend state media, revealing evidence of the slaughter and the protests that followed.
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Public Intervention (2008 - present)
In anticipation of the 2011 Centennial of the infamous fire, Ruth founded the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition. Over a three year period, the Coalition grew into a national network of over 250 partners who created hundreds of educational, activist and artistic actions across the country.
Alchemy of Light
Performance (2010)
Alchemy of Light melds 19th century illusionism with current interactive technologies to depict the life of the legendary magician Torrini as a parable from a time when our lives first became mediated by machines.
$700 Billion for the Arts – Because We’re Too Big to Fail!
Public Intervention (2010)
Who does more for America -
banks or the arts??
Tired of writing those grants? Juggling day jobs? There is another option!
Join the movement to make the case -
We're too big to fail!
Magic Box
Interactive Installation (2009)
Magic Box melds 19th century illusionism with current technologies in the guise of a pre-cinema device. The Magic Box mirrors our current confusion about human connection with the 19th century hope that emerging technologies might at last allow us to breach the life-death divide to see our lost loved ones once again.
Ethel
Interactive Documentary Performance (2007)
Created with Ethel Greenbaum, 89 years old.
Viewers enter a room where Ethel sits quietly at a dining table. Raising her hand, the table becomes a projection surface. Her movements triggers clips from her life story. The audience is invited to move their hands across the table to learn more about Ethel.
Turing Machine
Interactive Documentary (2007)
Created in collaboration with Gian Pablo Villamil.
Turing Machine utilizes a re-purposed typewriter as a model Turing Machine to depict the life of Alan Turing, the father of modern computing. Reknowned for his role in breaking the infamous Enigma code during World War II, Turing was later persecuted for his homosexuality.
Pisces Vorat Maior Minorem (Boo!)
Site-Specific Performance (2006)
An international collaboration created at CESTA in the Czech Republic.
Cusp
Fiction Film (2000)
35mm • 25 Minutes • Color
Lays bare the growing pains of a
12 year old girl -New York Times
There is an electric moment for girls as they leave behind the bold egoism of girlhood for the shaky dislocations of adolescence. Cusp is a fiction film created with a group of 11-12 year old girls hitting the wall of early adolescence.
