About
Women artists
The role of sound in activism
Starting in September 2011, Occupy Los Angeles (Occupy L.A.) is one of the many "Occupy" movements in the USA, following the original Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest.
Within this context, ARLA (a shifting acronym that has stood for Audile Receptives Los Angeles and A Ripe Little Archive) — a group Juliana Snapper had previously co-founded with filmmaker Vera Brunner-Sung, artist Elana Mann, choreographer Kristen Smiarowski — was part of this movement in its own original way.
On November 11, 2011, ARLA performed a composition written by Juliana Snapper and Elana Mann entitled People’s Microphony (2011). In the process, the artists hosted a dialogue about listening to Occupy and the role of sound in activism.
Juliana Snapper describes her take on this experience:
The simple physical presence of people carrying large papier-mache ears was met with a kind of hungry recognition — recognition of what it meant that we were holding the symbols (giant ears) and a sense of relaxation where we carried them (easy eye contact, curiosity).
- “Radical Receptivities”: an article by Juliana Snapper and Elana Mann (Art 21 Magazine, Jan. 2012).
- “Occupy L.A. and the Art World” by Catherine Wagley: an article/review of the Nov. 11, 2011 ARLA event, which appeared in the L.A. Weekly magazine (Nov. 24, 2011).
Read Sue Bell Yank's article “In the Space Between Bodies - Women Artists and Occupy LA” which appeared in n.paradoxa, international feminist art journal, volume 32, KT Press, July 2013, pp. 23-31: