Installing Desconocida Unknown Ukjent at The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University, Philadelphia

Sunday afternoon I started working in the gallery to install about 3800 labels on a 2,4 x 9,7 m pink painted wall. The labels are installed using morse code, spelling out the lyrics of the Mexican and the American Anthem interwoven.

There are times when I am thinking this is insane, I will never be able to finish this,(and I still have a way to go) but then I look at one of the labels embroidered so beautifully and I think of the pressing situation in Ciudad Juarez and I do one more line.
The last couple of days I have also had great help. Tomorrow there will be an embroidery workshop in the gallery. And by Saturday it all has to be finished, (and hopefully some time before that!) The gallery is doing a great job to attract attention to the show and the reason for the show: to point again to the city of Juarez, where hundreds of women continues to be killed in raising numbers. By April 2010 34 women are missing. I contacted the journalist and writer Diana Washington Valdez to see if she could help me tracking the names of the murdered women the last years. She answered me: I wish I could help you, but the Mexican government has not released information about the womens murders in the past four years, much less names. They are supposed to provide more transparency and even create a Web site for this purpose, but have not done so. When I say they are "supposed to," I mean that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights directed the Mexican government in 2009 to do this. However, I don't think they gave Mexico a deadline for this.
As soon I know something different, I will definitely let you know.

In Trondheim I assume the last things are getting ready for the opening of REALITY CHECK on Friday. I will be there by thoughts and will come June 2nd to do another embroidery workshop, please contact Gallery director Madeleine Park for more information on this event.

And in Philadelphia I hope I see many for embroidering or helping pinning the labels on to the wall, and most importantly at the art march and reception on Saturday.

Lise