March 28, 2002
Contact: Janet Marstine (509-963-3133/e-mail: marstinj@cwu.edu)
ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Ju-Pong Lin will make two presentations Thursday, April 4 at Central Washington University. The multi-media artist will give a video screening/performance art workshop at 1 p.m. in Black Hall 152 and a lecture, “Domestic Craft and Crafty Aliens,” at 7 p.m. in Randall Hall 117. Both events are free and open to the public.
Lin created the Teletubby installation “Functional Obsolescence” for the Spurgeon Gallery “What a Doll!” exhibition. She teaches film and video studies at Evergreen State College.
During the afternoon session, Lin will present excerpts of her video/performance pieces “Laundry Stories” and “Land & Skin.” She will also lead a performance art workshop. The videos and performance art are part of her series on clothing and domestic activity. She scorches, tears, writes on, reconstructs, and quilts white oxford shirts, the central icon in these pieces.
Aesthetically, the white shirt acts as a blank slate onto which she can project new meanings. The icon of the shirt serves as an emblem of the corporate uniform, a signifier of privilege that she deconstructs. It also connects Lin to her own family’s story of immigration with the history of Chinese laundrymen in the Northwest.
At the evening session, Lin will discuss the significance of her Teletubby installation for “What a Doll!” As Lin sees it, the Teletubby phenomenon reflects an increasing fascination in our culture with questions about the boundaries between body and machine. The popularity of these dolls parallels a renewed interest in science fiction movies about cyborg creatures. Lin’s cyborgs explore concerns about the popular depiction of our relationship with technology, our understanding of children and their use of technology and the politics of race in representations of technology.
Lin received her M.F.A. in Intermedia Arts and Video/Performance from the University of Iowa. Her videos have been screened at diverse film festivals including Women in the Director’s Chair 15th Annual Film and Video Festival, the Midwest Film and Video Showcase, Walker Museum of Art and the Athens International Film and Video Festival. She has performed with women at Ratcliff House, Washington Department of Corrections and On the Boards in Seattle. She also presented a workshop on art and resistance at the Third Annual Social Justice and Equality Conference in Olympia.
This event is sponsored by the Central Washington University Faculty Senate Research and Development Fund, College of Arts and Humanities and Department of Art.
