EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Laura Anderson Barbata
Lunchtime Studio visit with Laura Anderson Barbata
I am a bicultural, transdisciplinary artist. Since 1992 I have developed sustainable art-centered projects that integrate collaborative and participatory work that addresses issues of social justice and the environment. As a Mexican born, New York based artist, it is my belief that a shared artistic social practice can serve as a platform on which we connect, educate, exchange, create, and transcend borders in order to activate our sense of belonging to a global community. My work seeks to further the expectations of socially-engaged art by involving unlikely collaborators such as archives, scientists, activists, musicians, street dancers, and artisans to create works that operate both inside and outside of the art world. Since 2001 I began to work with stilt dancers in Trinidad and Tobago, and since 2007 have consistently collaborated with the Brooklyn Jumbies, and in 2012 with the Zancudos de Zaachila from Oaxaca, Mexico. The work combines character and narrative development with numerous collaborators in addition to textile arts, sculpture, dance, masking, music, procession, improvisation, ritual and protest.
