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Session

$200 From… To… -With Love

Lizania Cruz

A photo of $200 From… To… -With Love
A photo of $200 From… To… -With Love

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

Date:
February 14–April 6, 2019

Visitor info
To make an appointment, please sign up no later than 10 am the same day at recessartscheduling.as.me

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On February 14, Lizania Cruz will begin $200 From… To… -With Love a participatory art project focused on remittances, the money migrant send to their homelands. Annually, remittances total of over $500 billion dollars. In some countries remittances make up a large portion of the countries GDP; 10.5% in the Philippines, 20% in el Salvador, and 32% in Haiti. Cruz’s project attempts to make visible the impact a dollar could have, and the kinship and love embedded in the seemingly modest act of sending money home as a gift and support for family and loved ones. $200 From… To… -With Love explores how this economy of care challenges growing dangerous xenophobic narratives of immigrants both within the US and internationally.

During her Session, Cruz will solicit receipts from Recess visitors, non-immigrants and immigrants, for purchases in the USA of $200 and under, which will serve as the base for a series of collages depicting the profound impact that same amount has when spent in a commonly used food item in a country with a high remittance flow. Cruz’s colleges will be displayed at Recess and available for sale to visitors and the profits will go to a fund subsidizing the fees paid by migrants when sending remittances.

Complimenting Cruz’s physical artworks, the artist will partner with artists, activists and advocacy organizations such as The Center for Family Life, The Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Hate Free Zone organizers on a series public events and workshops. Events will focus on investment in and financing of education for immigrants, migrant worker rights, and allyship, and will take the form of screenings, talks, and readings on the impact, sacrifice and love represented by remittances.

Session invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.

About the artist

Lizania Cruz

Lizania Cruz (1983) is a Dominican participatory artist living and working in New York City. She is interested in how migration effects notions of citizenship, identity, and ways of belonging. Cruz has been exploring these themes in concepts that translate to printed matter, objects, and photography. Currently, she is an Alumni Create Change artists-in-residence at The Laundromat Project, where she created We the News, a series of story circles with Black immigrants and first-generation Black Americans that are documented through zines and distributed publicly through a roaming newsstand. She is also a Participatory Design Fellow with the Design Trust for Public Space. Her work has been exhibited at the Arlington Art Center, Project for Empty Space, The August Wilson Center, the Art/Center South Florida, and Jenkins Johnson Project Gallery among other venues and has been published in Hyperallergic, KQED Arts, Fuse News, and The New York Times.

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