Front Yard Art Opening for “Hello. How Are You?” – a project of Studio Revolt Join Anida Yoeu Ali and Masahiro Sugano for coffee, tea and doughnuts as we unveil, discuss and engage with our latest public art installation titled “Hello. How Are You?” When: Sunday November 11, 2018 from 10am – 1pm Where: Our front yard at 1623 S. Grant Ave, Tacoma WA 98405 (brick house at the corner of 17th & Grant Ave) FREE & Open to the community-at-large The FB event page is up and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2221141631340584/ *please note that Feast Arts Center will move their regularly held Sunday morning Community Coffee over to our front yard in collaboration with our efforts *for more info contact studiorevoltmedia@gmail.com<mailto:studiorevoltmedia@gmail.com> About the Project: “Hello. How are you?” is a large-scale mixed media outdoor installation of letters that spell out the common American greeting “Hello. How are you?” As Tacoma’s art scene grows and expands alongside the city’s rapid urban gentrification, this installation poses a question directed at the need to have more conversations between our communities. The phrase is both a statement and question intended to invite participation between local and newer residents and between art makers and art viewers. Comprised of bright white letters measuring 4 feet in height, the work has a physically dominating presence even though its innocuous phrasing is intended to invite conversations. Can artists effectively participate by challenging the gentrification cycle with artworks that open up conversations and participation by the very communities that are at the heart of urbanization? As artists become a complicit part of urban redevelopment, artists must also be mindful and responsible to the existing ecology and histories in Tacoma. This artwork urges accessibility – both by displaying the artwork in actual neighborhoods and by putting artists in direct conversation with the people who live there. Our goal is to display the work in non-traditional and non-institutional “art” spaces such as churches/temples/mosques, schools, other people’s front yards, or other community art spaces. We believe art can and should happen in spaces outside of the typical and often exclusive institutions (galleries, museums, studios), spaces that are unfortunately and literally walled off from everyday people. As part of this artwork’s effort to bridge the gap between artists and audiences, it is important for the installation to occur multiple times in various places. The project initially will begin in the artists’ front yard, as a way to honor our family’s presence as new residents amongst those around us, many longtime residents of the Tacoma Hilltop neighborhood. For this special opening, we are inviting our neighbors to mix with local friends and artists in the spirit of fostering community ties and to be “in conversation” to one another over food and drinks at what is typically a gallery opening. The difference is ours will be right in our own front yard with people who don’t typically attend art openings. From our neighbors’ oral histories, our house has had a difficult history related to violence and hardships at the height of Tacoma’s gang warfare in the mid 1990’s. The Hilltop has since undergone changes with our house left abandoned for over 8 years. Today, with our own blood, sweat and tears our house no longer sits empty and has come back alive. “Hello. How are you?” is our way to shift spaces away from destructive activities into one based in healing through creative activities. We are artists who believe in creatively contributing to our community by opening doors and cultivating conversations with, about and around art. About the Artists: Studio Revolt serves as a collaborative space for performance artist Anida Yoeu Ali and filmmaker Masahiro Sugano. Together our works open up possibilities for people to exist outside of conventional narratives. Studio Revolt takes it a step further by urging viewers to become participants and stake their claim in this world. As a transnational space for creation, our media lab operates wherever critical social issues exist. Anida Yoeu Ali is an artist, educator and global agitator. Ali’s practice spans performance, installation, videos, images, public encounters, and political agitation. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to art-making, her installation and performance works investigate the artistic, spiritual and political collisions of a hybrid transnational identity. In 2015, Ali won the top prize of the Sovereign Art Prize, Hong Kong. Her work is exhibited internationally, most notably with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, Palais de Tokyo, and the Asia Pacific Triennial 8. Ali earned her B.F.A. from University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and an M.F.A. in from School of the Art Institute Chicago. She is currently the Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington Bothell where she teaches art, performance and global studies courses. Ali resides in Tacoma and spends much of her time working between the Asia-Pacific region and the US! Masahiro Sugano, a Sundance Film Festival alumnus, is an award winning filmmaker whose accolades stretch from a Student Academy Award nomination in 1997 to the 2016 Documentary Award given by the National Asian American Journalists Association. Through his media lab Studio Revolt, Sugano created short videos on the issue of Cambodian deportations. Continuing his narratives on deportation, Sugano received the 2013 Center for Asian American Media’s Innovation Fund for his series “Verses in Exile” which was broadcast PBS online. Sugano’s second feature CAMBODIAN SON is the winner of several awards including Best Documentary Award CAAMFEST 2014 and Special Jury Prize at Cultural Resistance Film Fest of Lebanon 2014. He earned a BA in philosophy from Cal State Northridge and an MFA in film/animation from the University of Illinois-Chicago. His film’s screen, internationally, in cinemas, museums, schools and prisons. Sugano currently lives in Tacoma where he is conceiving new film projects. This project was funded by the Tacoma Arts Commission, TAIP 2018 Grant