Summer 2017
What I am doing right now…
Thrilled to announce that See You in the Streets! Art, Action + Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire won a 2017 American Book Award!
Instalove, the interactive theater piece I directed for writer/performer Catherine Duquette is at the Edinburgh Fringe through August then returns to English Theater Berlin in October.
I’ll be giving a talk at ICP in New York on 6 October 2017. More details coming soon…
It is the fight of our lives in the streets + on the plains.
Looking forward to seeing all of you in the streets!
– Ruth
Sign up for (infrequent)
Street Pictures News
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. read more
See You In the Streets
Book (2016)
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. read more
Gaza Ghetto
Public Intervention (2014)
Because to be silent, is to be complicit.
A response to Operation Protective Edge/the destruction of Gaza, summer 2014. read more
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. read more
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. read more
Voices of 9.11
A People's Archive (2002 - 2003 | 2011)
Who gets to tell the story of 9.11?
Voices of 9.11 was explicitly designed to provide an experience that affirmed each individuals narrative of September 11. With radical simplicity we insisted on the people's right to tell their own story. The collection of over 500 personal video testimonies provides a unique time capsule from 2002 through early 2003, in New York City, Washington D.C., Shanksville, PA and in the Pentagon, when the language to describe the experience was still being formed. read more
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. read more
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. read more
$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! read more
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. read more
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. read more
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. read more
Pisces Vorat Maior Minorem (Boo!)
Site-Specific Performance (2006)
Created as part of an international residency at CESTA in the Czech Republic. read more
Al
Interactive Documentary (2005)
A portrait of homeless artist Alfred Carlo based on his stories and paintings. The audience moves physical objects which reveal the documentary of Al's multifaceted life as painter, vet, raconteur and man of the street. read more
Belle
Fiction Film (2004)
35mm • 16 min. • color
Quietly shocking in its frankness
- Film Threat
Belle is a subversive fable of old age and beauty. The film was made with a community of 80 - 93 year old women whose participation as actors and advisors shaped the heart of the work. read more
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. read more
Bruce
Fiction Film (1998)
35mm • 3 Minutes • B&W
A duet for camera + dancer that challenges expectations of grace and disability. read more