The Kitchen Table Series
Viewer is challenged
Gaze
Objects
Content
Lack of color
Semiotics
Tableau Vivant tab·leau vi·vant /täˌblō vēˈväN,täˌblō vēˈvänt/
A silent and motionless group of people arranged to represent a scene or incident, includes props and may be theatrically lit.
From Art 21 Series.
Three minutes.
Speaking at National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
One hour.
Read:
Carrie Mae Weems Reflects on Her Seminal, Enduring Kitchen Table Series
WMagazine
Stephanie Eckardt, April 7, 2016
How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making
The New York Times Magazine
Megan O"Grady, October 15, 2018
Perhaps the World Ends Here
BY JOY HARJO
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
"Perhaps the World Ends Here" from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com.
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