Dear TANA Participants and Community Members,
On Tuesday, May 14th, artist Silvia Juliana Mantilla Ortiz visited Woodland and TANA to share Pura Cháchara, an interactive performance piece that asks participants to share a story of miscommunication in exchange for Colombian arepas made on Siliva’s mobile Bike-B-Q. A recent graduate of Otis College of Art and Design’s MFA program in Los Angeles, Silvia was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to the east coast in her teens. Next year she will hold a fellowship at the Queens Museum of Art. More info about Silvia can be found here: https://ospace.otis.edu/publicpracticeportfolio/Silvia_Mantilla_Ortiz
Below you can find pictures from her visit to Woodland and TANA.
Thank you for your support,
TANA Staff
About the Project:
TALK IS CHEAP: Unincorporated Language Laboratories
Talk is cheap, I know it, you know it, we all know it. As a matter of fact it is so cheap it is practically free! And yet, sometimes we pay a steep price when we misspeak… With this in mind TALK IS CHEAP: Unincorporated Language Laboratories has set out on the mission of researching and experimenting with this magnificently rich and affordable medium.
TALK IS CHEAP is comprised of various laboratories that, through questions about language and miscommunication, explore issues dealing with hybrid and continuously evolving practices present in the immigrant community such as: artisan work, story-telling, food and music. Other sites of research include issues of discrimination, shame, public space, gentrification, and most importantly joy, play, and irreverence as a means of resistance.
T.I.C.’s first laboratory is Pura Cháchara. Pura Cháchara relies on a mobile Bike-B-Q unit where we cook and exchange homemade arepas (Colombian corn patties) for stories of miscommunication out in the streets. We talk about language and different types of knowledge, while sharing our love for food and customized bikes.
From May 12 – 16 Talk Is Cheap will out on the road, leaving its home-base in LA, California and heading to Merced, CA, Woodland, CA and Eugene, OR before arriving at its final destination in Portland, Oregon.