Carnegie Mellon University

Center for the Arts in Society

Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Fine Arts

CAS
September 22, 2011

Sites of Passage

Sites of Passage

Tavia La Follette
Founder and director of ArtUp and past artist-in-residence in the Center for the Arts in Society, Carnegie Mellon.

Thursday, September 22, 4:30 PM, Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)

Tavia La Follette will be discussing her work on  SITES OF PASSAGE, which will open this fall at the Mattress Factory Museum. It is a final expose of the Firefly Tunnel Project (www.fireflytunnels.net) an exchange between Egypt and the U.S. during Egypt's fight for democracy, as the U.S. enters the 10th anniversary of 9/11, executes its "architect", questions its own democracy, and as both countries go into an election for a new leader.

The research looks at art as a deeper language of communication, which deals with such topics as religion, culture and identity; as well as how to use virtual art as a force for social change in a globalized world.
 
The aim of the Firefly Tunnel Project is to create a global network of experimental artists who communicate and work together through a virtual performance art lab.  The vision of a cooperative lab stems from the belief that the arts and symbolism can reach humanity on a deeper level than rhetoric, which is often misinterpreted.  The overall goal of the project is to build a language of peace through the actions of art.