Have a Tea, Leave a Trace

Have a Tea — Leave a Trace: Traces of Tea.

For the OPEN ENGAGEMENT symposium (Regina, Canada) and the 1st Public Intervention Day of Southern Exposure (San Francisco) I provided the Mobile Tea Ceremony as an act of collective memory making.

Traces of shared moments of tea. I asked my participants for three things: Chose a place of your liking, whisk and share tea thoroughly, and embrace the moment. The green chlorophyllic residues from those tea moments became traces of existence manifesting that "we were here together". Turned out that the antioxidant effect of green tea kept the cotton pads mold-free for weeks...

Have a Tea, Leave a Trace

Imprints of residue Macha tea from the bottoms of tea bowls whisked and emptied by: [001] Kanarinka [002] Berit Norgaart [003] Lori Gordon [004] Ben Guttin [005] Gary Wiseman [006] Ben Schubert [007] Harrell Fletcher [008] Sal Randolph [009] Jane Allison [010] Naomi Potter [011] Leif Thorseth [012] Alison Dean [013] Erinn M. Cox [014], [015], [016], [017], [018] Samples from Tea Party with Gary Wiseman at OPEN ENGAGEMENT symposium in Regina on October 13, 2007

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The 1st Public Art/Urban Interventions Day on December 1, 2007 was jointly organized by:


Southern Exposure
Located in San Francisco's Mission District, Southern Exposure is a non-profit, artist-run organization for over three decades, dedicated to presenting diverse, innovative, contemporary art, arts education, and related programs and events in an accessible environment. Southern Exposure is dedicated to giving artists — whether they are exhibiting, curating, teaching, or learning — an opportunity to realize ideas for projects that may not otherwise find support.

The Intersection for the Arts
The Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space (est. 1965) and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music, dance, and the visual arts. Intersection provides a place where provocative ideas, diverse art forms, artists, and audiences can intersect one another.


Open Engagement
Between October 11-13, 2007, I realized Have a Tea, Leave a Trace at the conference Open Engagement: Art After Aesthetic Distance organized by Jennifer Delos Reyes. This was a hybrid project that used a conference on socially engaged art practices as its foundation and incorporated elements including workshops, exhibitions, residencies, pedagogy, curatorial practice and collaboration. The event was hosted by the University of Regina, the Dunlop Art Gallery, The Mackenzie Art Gallery and various local Regina residents from October 11-13, 2007. Over 40 national and international contributors were present.