Parlor at the Armory: The World That Begins Where Our Skin Ends

A multi-artist residency organized by the Women’s Center for Creative Work

The parlor traditionally exists as a liminal boundary between the private rooms in the home and the public space of the street. This is the very inception of the world that begins where our skin ends — the place for formulating exchanges between our public and private selves. Here we create a space to recognize the variety in ourselves. We reclaim the values of the private sphere, allowing intimate works to be comfortably recast before they are released into the wider world. Here we bring the sometimes disorganized table of personal production into the intermediary space of the galleries— blurring the boundaries of personal and public, process and display, the labors that are completed for wages and those for other, more intimate exchanges.

 

The World That Begins Where Our Skin Ends

Kate Johnston & Sarah Williams’s practice is one of facilitation. How do they make a space safe and useful? They try to design things that are easy to understand. They buy power cords, sticky notes and paper clips. Also, invariably, plants.

Public Opening & Broadsheet Launch Party
Friday, October 2, 6-8pm
Armory Mezzanine
Come join the residents for wine, snacks, and mini presentations about each project!

 

daughter

 

From Mother to Daughter to Daughter

Through craft, labor, performance, and storytelling, Soyoung Shin will reconnect with her Korean heritage led by cues from her upbringing in a suburban Korean American pocket south of Seattle.

Intergenerational Fash Mash
Sunday, October 11, 12-3pm
Pasadena Senior Center
Turn your clothes into other clothes! Skirts into capes! Why not? Style consultants and seamstresses available to assist, and a clothing swap will accompany the event.

slipper

t.field

Katherine Kokoska, Feyza Koksal & Stephanie Newcomb will create an installation inspired by the architectural typology of the Turkish harem or the “women’s quarters” that strives to create a tension between the public and private self.

t.time
Saturday, October 17, 2-5pm
An afternoon tea accompanied by a conversation on the relationship between architecture and the social structures of gender.

 

globe

 

WHERE ARE YOU FROM? — An Interactive Dissection and Re-imagining of Geography, Borders, and Home

Melanie Griffin will create a textile piece re-imagining borders in order to create a new space and a complex emotional geography. Part invented map, part empty canvas, awaiting new entries.

A Conversation About Origins, Home, History & Power
Sunday, Oct 25th, 2-5pm
Armory Mezzanine
A facilitated conversation with members of various LA social justice organizations about how structural power, history, and culture influence the question, “Where are you from?” Concludes with an interactive art happening!

 

snake

 

We Love Our Parents, We Fear Snakes

Johanna Breiding will build an abstract foyer/drawing room/death room/ living room that will aim to queer ideas around traditional and familiar spaces through the collective memory and physical engagement with materials, objects and projections. This space will be an accumulative installation drawing from the memories of past inhabited spaces of the artist and collaborators Marbles Jumbo Radio and Yann Novak. 

Public Opening
Saturday, October 31st, 6-9pm
Armory Mezzanine
The program will culminate with a durational, public performance in the space with movement by Marbles Jumbo Radio and sound by Yann Novak.

 

hello-my-name-is

 

You May Call Me 

Before Kate TBA can reclaim a name lost by years of silent, smiling colonialism, she first has to face the forces that exalt and enforce strict castes of identity. Her family, the Hispanic community, and the U.S. Federal government are first up.

To Tutaya
Sunday, November 8th, 12-2 pm
Armory Mezzanine
A zine; a reading; some questions you may not have asked, answered. Kate samples some of the multi-media pieces she’s created to understand this question of name.

microwave

Studio Cooking

Studio Cooking with Arden Ellis Surdam and Meghan Gordon will create a temporary studio kitchen using cooking equipment borrowed from artists’ studios. Each day of the residency, a different chef-artist, -writer,
-curator, or -performer will present a unique meal-event. Performers and guests will assemble over mini fridges, toaster ovens, hot plates, coffee makers, rice cookers, blenders, and microwaves, and will eat from Orr Herz’s handcrafted ceramic bowls, all while enjoying performance and discussions. Meal-events will be prepared by Páll Haukur, Eric Kim, David Bell, Lisa Jugert, Amanda Katz, and Studio Cooking. All meal-events will take place in the Armory Mezzanine. RSVP to and make inquiries at: [email protected].

Events throughout the week with a
Public Three-Course Meal-Lecture-Performance Delivered by Surdam and Gordon.
Sunday, November 15th, 12-5pm
Armory Mezzanine
RSVP required to [email protected]

magnifying-glass

An Incomplete and Personal History of Old Town Pasadena

What can be learned from Old Town? What can you see and not see? Maryam Hosseinzadeh’s residency will be focused on this neighborhood as part of a multiphase project on collective and personal histories of Pasadena and Altadena in the context of LA.

Walking Tour of Old Town
Saturday, November 21, 11:30am-2:30pm
Meet at lawn at the corner of
W. Colorado Blvd. & S.Orange Grove Ave.
Join Maryam and guest contributors for a non-traditional, experiential historical district walk delving into personal/social narratives, levels and layyers of histories, taste memory, and more.

 

lake

 

Vessel

One year after Lake Sharp’s father’s death and six months after her daughter’s birth, She makes clay vessels. Grief and joy, life and death, made tactile.

The Space Between Breaths
Sunday, December 6th, 2-5pm
Armory Mezzanine
All are invited to come with their own experiences of birth and death, to carve into Lake’s unfinished pieces, leaving a collection of indelible marks. What we share: the first and the last breaths.

light

One Axe Plays the Armory

Teams of writers, directors, and actors invited by April Wolfe will descend upon the Armory to create new scenes and plays while you watch. Collaboration boundaries are tested in a tense five hours of ideation and creation.

Public Showcase
Sunday, December 13th, 4-6pm
Armory Mezzanine
Be entertained by five new plays and scenes created by writers, directors, and actors who were teamed up, thrown into a room, and asked to use the Armory’s atmosphere to make something new. Emceed by Becky Thyre.

 

 

Dates and times subject to change, check armoryarts.org for updates. This project is funded as a part of the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town My Pasadena program, a City of Pasadena public art project in partnership with Side Street Projects.