Lexa Walsh

Adobe Backroom Gallery, 2017

The In Between: Tea Talks is a series of intimate facilitated discussions over home cooked meals that bring together conflicting populations of artists, activists and workers to discuss topics affecting them in the Bay Area. The project gathers artists, writers, tech workers, “sharing economy” laborers (Uber and Lyft drivers, AirBnB hosts) and their critics (taxi drivers, tenants rights activists) together in a hospitable environment so each may share their positions in a safe yet open and critical dialogue. Each position is respectfully held in the space.

The conversations are documented in audio, and through a series of commissioned writings by participants published in a related reader.

Adobe Books has always been a space for free speech, riveting conversation and a multitude of voices. It is a particularly poignant location as it sits in the heart of the Mission district and has been a subject of displacement and gentrification.

The goals of the project are to:

Complicate the current good vs, evil/us vs. them narrative while eliciting understanding and extracting nuances from all sides.

Engage in local micro politics while placing these issues in the larger current political landscape.

Create a space for hospitable democracy.

Share understanding about issues affecting our communities to a broader audience.

The In-Between: Tea Talks Reader features essays by Elena Gross, Georgia Perry, Sarah Hotchkiss, Sarah Burke, Emily Holmes, Liat Berdugo, and Dorothy Santos. Graphic Design by Margaret Tedesco.
42 pages. You can get one here

Williams College Museum of Art, 2016

Both Sides Now is a first-time creative collaboration by sibling artists Lexa and Dan Walsh. Dan, a minimalist abstract painter, and Lexa, a socially engaged artist, come together to merge their practices around a shared interest in spectacle, perception, and encounters among objects and people. The result is a series of interactive sculptural stations—nodding to Rome’s Circus Maximus—which encourages new investigations and responses to WCMA’s collection.

In the adjacent gallery they address their differing theories of contemporary art head-on through a series of oversized stitch samplers featuring the artists’ ongoing, and at times contentious, call-and-response dialogue.

A curatorial project for Williams College Museum of Art, 2016

WCMA Summer School: A Weekly Mashup of Campus Life was a public program that mixed many aspects of the academic experience with aesthetic ones. I worked with the WCMA Education and Public Programs staff, many Williams professors, and local community members to develop a lively series of participatory events for their summer audiences.

For more click here

de Young Artist Fellowship Project, 2014

Mapping the Archive was developed over many months (and years of collecting), and was manifested during three weeks in the de Young’s Kimball Education Gallery/Artist Studio. The Installation was based around an ever growing timeline of the history of Bay Area post-studio practice and the socioeconomic climate that fostered it. It  included borrowed and collected archival materials/ephemera, a library, an interactive “Taxonomy Station”, weekly speakers, and a website. The project continued through the end of the year with more events, a printed piece, a website, and an archive-inspired installation of Dias de los Muertos at Oakland Museum.

Be sure to see the digital timeline at mappingthearchive.com

I was the Archivist in Residence at Real Time and Space in Oakland’s Chinatown. The essential question is “What has been generated by this place/What has this place generated”? Five years, fifteen studios, fifty eight visiting residents, and a crew of members later: a lot. This archive houses documents from artists in residence as well as ephemera from studio members.

A comprehensive website is forthcoming. 

CCA & Open Engagement,  2015-16

This Best Practices Workbook is a product of a workshop I facilitated with CCA MFA/MA students in April 2016, based on a workshop at the Open Engagement (OE) conference in 2015 in Pittsburgh, PA. It was available at Open Engagement 2016. Compare results of both workshops here  

Additionally, I host Archiving Your Legacy workshops for artists and organizations. Read the results from the 2016 workshop at Alliance of Artist Communities Conference here

Oakland Museum of California, 2014

In this project I was asked to work with OMCA’s Days of the Dead archives. I uncovered a dichotomy between the lively colorful world of Muertos and the 81/2" x 11" sheets of “dead” paper holding reports, budgets, contracts and thousands of hours of labor by many workers revealed the archives. I have recreated a fantasy juxtaposed world of images from the past twenty years, drawers filled with archival materials, and interviews with stakeholders, as well as a small ofrenda for my recently deceased father.

Listen to sound clips of interviews with stakeholders here

Sharing a meal together is fundamental to the human experience and the development of culture.

Community cookbooks have a long legacy in the United States of identifying and celebrating communities, such as museum docents, church groups and the Junior League.  They have often been used not only for fundraising, but also as collective memoirs of place and culture.  Meal Ticket brings together different individuals and groups for home-cooked meals and recipe exchanges that facilitate conversation and community. The recipes are compiled into community cookbooks, creating a unique group identity, while the meals propose a temporary utopia.

I have facilitated these meals and made cookbooks with museum workers, groups of arts and tech workers, naked performance artists, senior citizens, and Pakistani and Indian musicians, among others

Intersection for the Arts, 2015

I was the archivist and curator for Intersection’s 50th Anniversary Archive Show.

By searching through nearly a hundred boxes, I discovered lost histories of this important San Francisco institution. I uncovered not only the likely suspects: posters, calendars, art works,  but also meeting notes, board members' letters, and memos of financial crises. I sleuthed around to discover things lost from institutional memory.

In the show, I included 63 of the boxes, a flag representing the Fiscally Sponsored Projects, a wall honoring 50 years of laborers, a variety of program ephemera, a pillar covered in posters, a reel to reel tapes from the archives revealing an early project Arts News Service, a component of Bay Area Arts Services, a listening station, and a fiscal crises timeline with community responses to their most recent one, which resulted in the firings of three curators. 

http://www.theintersection.org/#!archive-show/c1crm.

Walker Art Center, Feb. 6th 2014
In collaboration with John Munson & Chris Larson, with Jerry Brownrigg, Richard Medek, and slew of great participating songwriters, we wrote and recorded 18 multiply-authored songs about Cabin Fever and the long, cold winter. Great Thanks to Ashley Duffalo, Sheila Novak, Sarah Schultz and the entire Education & Public Programs team. 

 http://blogs.walkerart.org/ecp/2014/03/26/winter-we-bid-you-farewell-with-a-song/

2010-2013

In 2011-12, I was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum's (PAM) Education department, while also participating in several iterations of the Museum's Shine a Light event. I made a slew of projects, and wrote a final report, which can be visited more deeply here

Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL 2013

I hosted a temporary “senior club” in New Smyrna Beach (open to any self identified person over 50), with a series of activities involving meals, recipes, Photo portraits, interviews, workshops, and activities that lend themselves to storytelling. Conversation prompts included abilities changing, nostalgia, and collecting. 

Find more about the Silver Social Club's Meal Ticket Luncheon Series in the Meal Ticket section of this site.

Oakland Museum of California, 2013

The SoundStation was debuted in Oakland Museum’s We/customize show. The machine is an interactive instrument prototyped and changing throughout the show. It has samples and loops of the museum’s natural history audio archives, toy instruments, and other quotidian museum sounds. The Acorn Woodpecker & Western meadowlark are remixed into loops, other sounds act as accents, and there is record/playback capabilities. It was popular among children, musicians, and security guards. Thanks to Leo Knapp for the technical work!

Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, 2013

This exhibition resulted from an experimental camp/workshop at Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. A question was asked: What happens when you invite eighty museum designers from around the world to create an exhibition together in 48 hours? Working with Balakrishna Chennupati, a UX Designer from Nokia, Sarah Groh, a guest services SCMAH staff member, and exhibit designer Maria Mortati, we unveiled the piece Untitled, Totem VII, 1977, by Peter Zecher, which we discovered, hadn’t been shown in 30 years. We created a semi fictional narrative about its history in a crate, animating the object, and even won a prize for creating the most empathy for an object.

Creative Time Summit, 2012

A fortune cookie always acts as a conversation prompt. I have subverted the fortunes with more difficult subjects in Recipe for a Protest.

“What is a recipe for successful protest?”

“Where is the line drawn between tolerance for other’s beliefs and defending your own?”

“What role does militance play in protest?”

“What is a recipe for a protest gone awry?”

Oakland, CA, New York, NY Jyderup, DK, Ljubljana, SLO, Paris, FR, Tabor, CZ, 2008-2010

I facilitated open calls for community members to come together and write/record advertisement songs about the places they live. In some cases they performed together, in others, I collected lyrics and write/perform the songs with local musicians. I have collectively written jingles for Oakland, CA, Paris, France, NY, NY, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Jyderup, Denmark and Tabor, CZ.

Listen to them all and more here

An Oakland Jingle:

“Come to where it’s sunny

There are no hurricanes, but lots of water

Birds and squirrels and artists

All trespass in scenic places

Fairyland, Art’s Crab Shak

Old Oakland, Redwood Park

Chinatown, The Paramount

Oakland is San Francisco Real

Oakland is San francisco Real

Diversity and Harmony

Oakand: It’s got Merit!”

Food Cart Pod at 4th Avenue near PSU in Portland, 2011

I worked with local food carts to exchange a shift of my labor for songwriting and recipe sharing for this project, where I attempted to locate where culture and labor meet through the tradition of songs about work. I made an accompanying diorama for an exhibition.

Learn more and listen: http://foodcartsongs.tumblr.com

AB Gallery, Portland State University, 2011

I have made a number of cookbooks with different communities- this exhibition represents 6 different cookbook projects, which are gathered in the book All Day SInging and Dinner on the Ground. Each community I worked with in making the cookbooks is represented by a large vinyl recipe poster. There is an extensive community cookbook collection to peruse as well.

Condensations of the Social, Smack Mellon, 2010 Curated by Sara Reisman

A collaboration among Jen delos Reyes, Ariana Jacob, Hannah Jickling, Helen Reed, Michelle Swinehart, and me. We each chose sites of non-traditional pedagogy happening in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and marked both these locations and the gallery with custom felt flags. This was part of a larger group show featuring veteran Socially Engaged practitioners such as Meirle Laderman-Ukeles, Pablo Helguera, and Tim Rollins + K.O.S. among others. 

Learn more here

Resource Library, Website 2010-2017

A resource for artists with opportunities, books, articles, links to organizations, venues and other artists. The blog framework allows for users to make annotations about entries. 

http://librarification.tumblr.com

2011-12 with Nicole Penoncello

Your Garden Cookbook is a project that shared our interests in cooking, gardening and community building by making custom cookbooks for Portland, OR gardeners based on what they grew, and hosting workshops and events. 

https://yourgardencookbook.wordpress.com/

The Incidental Person, Apexart, NY, NY 2009

My interest in cheer stems from being a childhood cheerleader. I did a lot of research for this project, including working with Portland State University Cheerleaders, who joke about being called 'halfletes'- all the athleticism, half the respect. I wanted to interrogate the cheerleading paradigm in a number of ways. 

In this show,  visitors could call a hotline number and request their own cheer, or watch others'. I sent back a cheer made in situ, via video within one week, and it would be added to the collection the screen. I also did a cheerleading workshop with New Yorkers. Here's one:

Pot! Pot!

We like it a lot!

Legalize, don't criticize.

It can heal you, it can feel you.

There is no reason to conceal you.

Decriminalize POT!

Ljubljana, SLO 2009

For a 6-week residency at the Museum of Transitory Art (MoTA), I collected maps of places “I wouldn’t find on my own” and toured the city, resulting in an alternative Tourism Bureau, a series of collectively written songs, a publication “Selected Journeys and Experiences, and a Website

SAIR, Jyderup, DK 2008

After asking residents of this small Danish village of one street to draw a map of what constituted their town, I traveled these surprisingly diverse routes, photograph them, and recreated their likeness in rope drawings. 

Community Building Square Dance for Artists and Others, 
2008-20111
Performance, rope, printed matter, mixed media
Dimensions variable

An interactive performance that invites artists and others in need of networking and problem solving to identify their strengths and weaknesses and share them with both friends and strangers through a led dance. On the walls in rope read the fine sentiment Honor Your Partner. All were encouraged to bring business cards. Cards were provided for those without. There were a number of adjectives printed on stickers to wear, or the participants could make up their own. I used traditional square dance calls as well as my own: "Share a resource with your partner," "Exchange cards," "Discuss how you can take on more of your partners adjectives," etc. Future iterations included collaborations with musicians in Denmark and Portland, calling out conversation prompts addressing politics and current events.

Performance, Installation 2008

A performance testing the time it took to get a wedgie among a collection of women's underwear.

Keys That Fit, 2008

A performance/installation where artists and gawkers alike could have their pictures taken with a real artist in the uptown arts district of Oakland. This artist expresses all the sentiments a real artist has: she's a cheerleader, she's defeated, she's sassy, she rocks... The artist was installed at Keys That Fit for June & July, 2008. Participants were encouraged to "Have your way with her", inviting conversation about feminism & consent, and discomfort.

See all of the images here

Kaohsiung, Taiwan 2006

Imposters of the foreigner were left in a university cafeteria for a week to see what would happen to her- participants were encouraged to act as they wished, bringing into question etiquette, feminism, and consent.

See many more imagers here

Found packing styrofoam, foam 2007

A monument and multiple cast of souvenirs for Oakland, CA

Mixed media, 2007

A model for train stations along Septa’s R5 line from Philadelphia to Paoli. This line was used regularly by me and my family and holds significant memories and experiences growing up as a child and teenager in the Philadelphia suburbs. This work proposes continuing in the Philadelphia area, bringing signage to the existing stations and locations marking significant personal histories.

"Boundless Ripples & Harmonies", Taipei Artist Village, 2006

Exploring what deserves monument and souvenir status as a long-time visitor and outsider in Taiwan

Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro - 2003
Los Angeles, Calif. - 2004
Oakland, Calif. - 2005
Taipei, Taiwan - 2005
Kio-A-Thau, Taiwan - 2006
Jyderup, Denmark - 2008

The public is invited to offer a much-loved but unusable possession, something that has been kept for nostalgic reasons only, to be lent to the project. I interview each participant about their object(s) and document their stories on video. I make photographic impressions of each object and listen to the stories the participants have to tell concerning its lifespan-where, when, how it was accumulated, how it got a particular tear or stain, why it is still held onto, etc. An object can be Immortalized on the spot and taken away, or it can be lent to the project for its duration, or, if allowed, it can be permanently altered- I have preserved some objects in beeswax.

Participants can visit me on the street, in the studio, or I can go out in the field to visit participants. In Belgrade, for instance, I visited a high school and a youth center, interviewing and photographing on location. Photographic images of the objects and the participants, video footage and some donated objects make up a final presentation. Postcards of the participants and their objects, and their stories, have been produced and disseminated, representing a place with its real residents and visitors. The participants and public are encouraged to bear witness to the work we create together.

The Immortalization Project and its results are shown periodically at galleries, with documentation from the previous Immortalization Project(s) also being shown each time, so that a sociological/anthropological analysis can be made by viewers and Project participants.

Each city and region has its own unique pattern(s), character(s), history(ies), and/or personalities evident not only in the objects offered for Immortalization, but also those absent. There are many stories to tell, both profound and quotidian.

http://lexawalsh.com/immortalization.htm

Digital prints, Foam core, custom stickers, printed matter, sound, 2006
The mapping of an explorer and the stories she found, shown at the Port in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Available for the public to take were route maps and postcards from The Immortalization Project. 
 

Public Art, Digital prints, printed matter, mixed media 2006

An installation of The Immortalization Project and objects made in response to a four-month residency at the Kio-A-Thau Sugar Refinery, in a small town outside of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

http://lexawalsh.com/immortalkioathau.htm

Dryer Lint, Digital Prints, 2005-7

Beeswax, artificial hair, scrubbing pads, doll clothing, lost socks, shoulder pads, feminine hygiene products, mixed media 1999-2007

Fabric from clothing shared among girlfriends, damaged stuffed animals, laminated digital prints, mixed media, 2000-2002

Jyderup 2008

Port Series 2007

Stau 2007

Jungle 2006

Ink, acrylic, mixed media on paper

The San Pablo Cookbook is a portrait of the neighborhood workforce through their recipes. 

The types of recipes offered and collected- recipes being sets of instructions for virtually anything - are as diverse as the workers and businesses along the San Pablo corridor. There’s a Recipe for Tire Change, a Recipe for Lucid Dreaming, a Recipe for a Dance Duo, and recipes for both a Stellar Sex Life and for Love.  There are recipes for food, too, like Isuara’s Flan, Khaled’s Chicken Shwarma, and Shelby’s Vegan Nacho Casserole. They are serious and funny, joyous and sublime. 

Community cookbooks have a long legacy in the United States of identifying and celebrating communities, such as museum docents, church groups and the Junior League.  They have often been used not only for fundraising, but also as collective memoirs of place and culture.  The San Pablo Cookbook is a platform for multiple voices to question and experience alternative modes of belonging. It hopes to incite curiosity among the workforce about itself, and create a unique group identity. 

All of the Trophy series were made with vintage collage materials collected and cut out in the 1970’s with the artist’s mother, Barbara Walsh. She was a decoupage artist, and my small child fingers helper her cut out detailed images.