A Wish for Abolition

A Wish For Abolition
by Carolina Rubio MacWright

March 13-20, 2012

chashama 266
266 W 37th Street (between 7th and 8th Ave)
New York, NY

Opening reception: Thursday, March 15, 2012  at 6pm

Viewable from the street: 10am - 7pm daily

Performances: March 15 & 17 at 6pm

Combining elements of performance and installation art artist Carolina Rubio MacWright uses the traditional Japanese tea ceremony to explore and create awareness about the world's current relationship to the Death Penalty.  The tea ceremony is performed in a sea of one thousand (1000) origami.

An oversized white kimono is used as the traditional scripture that accompanies a ceremony. The scripture (sewn to the fabric with human hair) contains an unfinished statement that will be completed and revealed through the enlightenment brought by the tea ceremony. The ceremony is performed onto hanging white sandals, which reveal the innocent victims of the death penalty.

This work manifests a wish for the abolition of the death penalty across the globe, and is made possible, in part with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artist statement:
For Carolina Rubio MacWright, the taking away of freedom is something very tangible. Whether it be a kidnapped person, a jailed inmate, or a trapped immigrant, her art deals directly with the despair, suffocation, impotence and occasional hope that accompany the taking of someone’s freedom. As a young Colombian who fled violence, a dreaming immigrant seeking a new home, an attorney defending immigrants, the unfairly judged and death row inmates, the artist has seen many sides of the story. Her mixed- media art, through sculpture and performance, seeks to share these experiences of loss of freedom within the human experience.  She feels it is her duty as a human being to bring these issues to light through the language of her art.

Artist Bio:
Carolina Rubio MacWright was born in Bogota, Colombia. She left Colombia and graduated Magna Cum laude, from Florida International University where she received a BFA, concentration in studio art. After graduation, she felt a need to understand the legal system, which so often feeds her art. She moved to Oklahoma City, where she received her Juris Doctorate degree. As an attorney she has worked in criminal law, immigration law and civil rights law. As an artist, she brings awareness of these social issues in the form of installations, performances and watercolors. She has exhibited her work in galleries and festivals around the U.S. She is a full time artist living in NY.
www.carolinamacwright.com