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The Crystal Quilt--Trailer

Suzanne Lacy

1992 00:07:06 United StatesEnglishColorMono
Tags:
Aging, Artist Portraits, Documentation, Feminism, Gender, Performance

Description

“The idea was to address the cultural invisibility of older women through art and through action,” the voice-over explains as this video begins. This short works offers an introduction to the Whisper Minnesota Project, which organized The Crystal Quilt performance, an event that brought together hundreds of women over 60 on a Mother’s Day in Minneapolis. As the video explains, “The Crystal Quilt is a case study in reframing notions of older women’s beauty, power, and relevance. Through it we catch glimpses of life patterns and values lost to our generation.”

About Suzanne Lacy

Suzanne Lacy is unique in drawing the world into collaboration with her work while maintaining an individual vision. Although art is often conceived and realized as a private act, in Lacy’s work the performance becomes a frame in which many people create personal expressions in relationship to a common issue. A pioneer in socially interactive, feminist public art, Lacy’s large-scale performances have, since the mid-'70s, engaged mass audiences through media and complicated community organizing.  

Also known for her writing, Lacy edited the influential Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, published in 1995 by Bay Press, and Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007, published in 2010 by Duke University Press. She is the Chair of the Graduate Public Practice Program at Otis College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles.