FAIR TRADE

The Loft at Liz’s exhibit entitled “Fair Trade” is dedicated to featuring works that speak to this increasingly relevant and transformative topic.  Our featured artists will be creating original works in statement of fair trade practices and others will actually incorporate the use of fair trade products as their medium. 

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards. It focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate, flowers and gold.

Featured Artists:

Stéphane Tourné

Ofunne Obiamiwe

Raksha Parekh

Pascal Giacomini

Andre Vanzijl

Also featured for our opening reception will be a guest performance by musician WolfRobe.

Stéphane Tourné’s series “Ici L’Espoir” is the basic foundation and inspiration for this exhibit.  His work in Africa with Oxfam led the artist to consider the consequences of unfair trading practices. Through his photographs, Tourné invites us to discover his views on this subject and in turn, to form our own. So simple, but powerful, the photographer utilizes images of naked bodies, carved and redesigned with raw materials and consumables.

This alliance between a smart aesthetic research and a humanitarian cause leaves the viewer in a state of breathless shock and ultimately develops to a sensual art-trash.

Ofunne Obiamiwe and her family survived the genocide of the Biafran/Nigerian war.  Now living in the United States for the past 20 years, Ofunne is an Associate Professor of Digital Art at Santa Monica College and the founder of Republic of Peace, an emerging arts and culture collective. Ofunne's work deals with multilayered issues of racism, gender, poverty, class, inclusion/exclusion, power/disenfranchisement, culture, colonialism, and spirituality unattached to religion. Her work reflects a profound dedication to human rights and activism and the belief that afflictions of violence, discrimination and intolerance will continue to fester until they are replaced with understanding and empathy.

Her work (sculptural installations, video, photographs, graphics, relational aesthetics) investigates duality and the juxtaposition of opposing ideas. It aspires not only to underscore problems but also to put forth solutions. Her goal is to form collaborative partnerships and to find effective ways of bringing to public spaces, issues so often swept beneath the surface.

Raksha Parekh creates her unique works from such commodities as sugar and cotton.  “I am deeply interested in the dynamic space where the history and psychology of the Indian and African experiences meet. My current works examine the connections of these two diasporas in relation to the colonial past using cotton and sugar as my mediums, both products being central players in this history.

The international expansion in consumption of sugar and cotton is deeply embedded in colonial history as these goods were crucial to the establishment of empire in the Americas, Asia and Africa. The history of sugar continues to have great relevance because of its defining role in shaping world history and culture”.

Pascal Giacomini is a multi-talented and multi-faceted artist. Working in several genres — mixed-media photography, sculpture, and functional art — he has exhibited in museums (UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History; Museum at California Center for the Arts, Escondido; and the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles), as well as creating solo public sculpture exhibits (City of West Hollywood, City of Malibu) and site-specific functional art for prestigious private properties (Lloyd Wright’s Sowden House and the Norma Talmadge Estate). Over the years, he has also exhibited in various Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department venues throughout the city.

The artist’s sculptures graced the median strip of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood for a one-man show of large-scale works during a three-month period. Fourteen sculptures, ranging from 7 to 14 feet in height, spanned La Cienega Boulevard to Doheny Drive from June to October in 1994. In 1995, another group of large-scale sculptures named the Malibu Summer Art Walk  could be viewed along the Pacific Coast Highway and other prime locations in the city. Pascal’s work was also the focus of a one-man exhibit in the Fall Artist Series, organized annually by Neiman Marcus.

Pascal was born in Paris and has lived and worked in Los Angeles since the 1980s. His studio is located in West Hollywood, California.

Instrumentalist, vocalist and social activist, WolfRobe, will perform his unique brand of instrumental and vocal sounds.  From African tribals to hip-hop, jazz and spoken word, WolfRobe is a truly dynamic and multitalented performer.  His work transcends traditional soundscapes, awakening a sense of clarity in both a spiritual and primal sense.  You certainly won't want to miss this amazing performance beginning at 8:45pm on Saturday September 17th.

More information will be available soon so stay tuned to www.theloftatlizs.com for details.