Susan Turcot's Drawings & Wall Street Protests

The other day, I found myself repeatedly going back to this page on Fecal Face's website--images taken on site at Occupy Wall Street. The protest has reportedly spread beyond its point of origin, and has become a symbol for communal efforts and questioning social inequities to which people from all walks of life can relate.

via Fecal Face

Some of the images depict young protesters wearing bandannas across their faces in order to stay fairly anonymous. The bandanna is also commonly recognized as an anti-authoritarian article of clothing. These images pair this otherwise confrontational accessory with intimate moments of couples embracing, friends resting alongside each other, and unexpected tenderness that shift these images into a broader narrative about humanity. We don't need to know anything more about these people beyond their gathering, and that is motivating to many across the nation (and globe).

While contemplating this visual catalyst and very real result, Susan Turcot's drawings seem an appropriate choice for this week. Her drawing, The Future for Less #3, reminds me of the united and nostalgic effect that a group gathering can have as an image. You can view it at the SFMoMA website here.

Although she takes her imagery from various sources, the international news is a notable point of reference. By transforming a moment in history into small scale drawings, Turcot's work invests an overwhelming sense of history and privacy.  Both history and privacy are contentious subjects, and are easily dispelled from one moment to the next.  Exalted moments exist for a second these days--if you Google a bit of news or an event, there will surely be plenty of information to satiate any desire to know more--but this isn't necessarily a consequence of technology.  Instead, it makes me marvel at the early days of photographic and documentary photography, and of course, social reform movements.

What Turcot's work suggests to me is also about the moment--the few minutes that it took to stop and appreciate the political climate that I live in as an American woman.  Although presented in a thoroughly 21st century medium, it was silently presented to me in the same manner that The Future for Less #3 alludes to a great moment in time without declaring too much for the viewer.

This sense of agency might also explain why many have felt at ease with gathering in their prospective cities as a sign of allegiance with the Wall Street protesters. Are you in a city that is home to a protest, too? Please share your stories and images if you'd like!

Domestic Workers Find their Own Means of Empowerment

Chandrani speaking at a Taste Culture event

In the Middle East, where widespread abuse of female migrant domestic workers is commonplace, Jordan positioned itself as leader in protecting workers rights when it introduced laws in 2008 that called for regulated hours, a day off and criminalisation of human trafficking.

However, a recent report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch and Jordan's Tamkeen Centre for Legal Aid cites complaints of physical and sexual abuse, house confinement, non-payment of salaries and long working hours.

According to the 110-page report, failure on the part of Jordanian officials to enforce labour laws put in place to protect female migrants are in fact 'facilitating abuse'.

Currently, more than 70,000 female migrant domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines are employed in the kingdom.

Pushed by a need to support their families, female migrant domestic workers leave their countries, children and lives to care for another household.

The issue of migrant domestic work is a personal issue for me. More than fifteen years ago while living on the streets in the United States and without any legal identification, I turned to cleaning houses as a means of supporting myself. When I lived in the home, I usually slept on the sofa and worked all the day without receiving a single pay. For these individuals, providing me with a place to sleep was sufficient enough. At times, I was subjected to verbal abuse and even sometimes molestation. Eventually, I would run away and end up on the streets once more.

Five years ago, when I arrived in the Middle East from New York it was not my intention to highlight the plight of these women. However, my treatment in Lebanon--when I was viewed as a servant whenever I walked the streets, or sleeping on the sofa in the home of three fellow foreigners, cooking and cleaning in exchange for board--triggered something in me.

Corinne Martin: Empowering Change Through Art

Courtesy of Corinne Martin

Truly a multicultural by-product--having been born in Paris, raised in Beirut, educated in Houston, and now living in Riyadh--Corinne Martin interprets iconography of contemporary Arab pop culture derived from television, music, food, and fashion through her mixed media and paintings. She’s also very interested in the notion of the region being a meeting point between Western and Eastern sensibilities and the role globalization plays amidst that. “After returning to the Middle East, I was able to experience my roots both as an adult and as an artist from a fresh perspective,” she says. “The region is experiencing immense cultural growth and has a new, rejuvenating energy that inspires and infuses my work.”

Courtesy of Corinne Martin

I could not help but gravitate towards her retro-esque paintings of popular and iconic symbols of Arab pop culture. Having grown up and currently based in the Arabian Gulf myself, Martin's work depicts an intensely, immediately familiar world of images, an integral part of my particular visual universe – for example, the imagery of Miranda or popular washing detergent, Tide [above] conveyed in Arabic script. “I’ve always drawn inspiration from those iconic images as they reflect the experiences of a younger generation of Arabs who came of age between the East and West,” Corinne says. “They have shaped our visual culture, which is why [my] kind of art resonates with so many people as it has an emotional connection to their past.”

The colors of her works are undeniably mint fresh – and yet, they also possess the feel of vintage posters and labels, the colors possessing a hyper-real bleached quality. The works’ effect is to render you nostalgic – while simultaneously able to re-live that past in the present.