Events

Now till Sun., July 31: Made in China Photo Exhibit. 0.00156 acres on Smith Street in Boerum Hill is pleased to announce  Made in China, a photography exhibition by artist Lorena Turner.

For Made in China the artist uses her camera as if it were an archeologist’s tool, searching for proof of human signs on mass produced items manufactured abroad and shipped to the U.S. Turner buys mundane goods in department stores and bodegas, dusts them for fingerprints and photographs the objects under black lights.

Plastic Clock Back, 2008, Digital print, 20 x 24, in Edition 1 of 3

This process allows  the evidence of “someone’s touch‟ to emerge, perhaps the person involved in making and packaging the item. “Made in China highlights the human factor and invisible history in each object’s production, and forces us to reconsider the relationship those leaving their fingerprints may have with it, reminding us we are only one link in the chain of an object’s life. This project is not intended to comment on the  scale or absurdity of our consumptive practices.”

Few of us take the time to think about the other end of the supply chain in our daily lives – who is there? Who has worked and handled the objects we are surrounded with before us? Selective labels such as organic remind us of the cost to the environment and lives at stake. But mostly we work to remain abstracted from the process, the mental cost to  realizing the history of an object is too great for most of us.  When we buy our basic goods we use on a daily basis, we erase an object‟s history, we have to assume our goods are clean, untainted, almost as if they arrive from nowhere. Made in China demands us to reconsider our stance.

Lorena Turner received an MFA from the University of Oregon, and teaches photojournalism in the Communication department at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. She is based in Los Angeles and New York City.

Turner creates image-based projects that are primarily photographic, but can combine text, interviews, and graphic design to tell stories related to identity and self-perception, immigration, ethno-political conflict, and consumer culture. Along with “Made in China”, she has developed and executed projects in La Boquilla, Colombia (an Afro-Colombian community outside of Cartagena), Kigali + Nyarbuye, Rwanda, and, most recently, Cuba.

Sat, and Sun 2 to 6 p.m. and by appointment

0.00156 acres

114 Smith St., Brooklyn

917.428.3810

acresbrooklyn@yahoo.com

www.acresbrooklyn.com

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