2019 CalArts REEF Residency Artists Launch Augmented Reality: Performance in Real Life

Varamini, ‘Augmented Reality: Performance In Real Life.’ | Image courtesy of Carole Frances Lung

On Friday, March 1, CalArts 2019 REEF Residents brd (Art MFA 18) and Hannah Kim Varamini (Art MFA 18) are launching Augmented Reality: Performance in Real Life, an experimental series of collaborative events, featuring various artists whose, “acts of labor, play or sabotage are read simultaneously as performance and real action; subverting or disrupting narrative structures and identity,” according to the program.

The first event in the series is Tailor Made: Pop-Up Alterations and Mending Shop by Frau Fiber. Organized by Christina Valentine and Varamini, Tailor Made invites exhibition goers to bring clothing in need of altering or repair. The cost of alterations or repairs is determined by spinning the “Wheel of Wages,” which contains a range of prices that are based on “Global Wage Trends for Apparel Workers” from JustJobs Network, an organization that promotes greater job equality and sustainable economic growth. All alteration and repair services are executed by German textile artist Frau Fiber.

Inspired by her experience as a former garment worker, Fiber’s artistic practice is based on advocating for greater transparency in the fast fashion industry and teaching communities about the human cost of mass production and consumption.

Born to first-generation American immigrants from Korea, Varamini is an interdisciplinary artist, who, according to her artist statement, “employs language and symbology to examine ideologies of nationalism, and personal histories of diaspora and cultural hybridity.” In 2008, she spent time in Namibia, Africa on a Fulbright Fellowship to deepened her interest in postcolonial discourse.

According to her artist’s statement, Brd’s artistic practice, which includes painting and book-making, investigates “notions of empathy and the limits of how the subjective experience can be inhabited or embodied.” She is “interested in understanding rhetoric and logic, and how the perception of understanding can determine value.” 

In 2015, the CalArts School of Art and the School of Critical Studies created the REEF Residency to support two MFA students from each school post-graduation. The residency provides cost-free space in a large shared studio in the Reef building in Downtown Los Angeles, as well as a modest grant to support their work.

The Tailor Made Pop-Up opens March 1, from 7-10 pm at The Reef in Downtown Los Angeles. Mended articles of clothing can be picked up on March 2, from 12-5 pm. The exhibition series Augmented Reality: Performance in Real Life runs through March 28, 2019.

For more details about the series visit www.lovesremedies.com.