Oakland based artist Tracey Snelling, featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 35, creates detailed dioramas and installations of urban landscapes. Ranging from miniature to large scale pieces, her installations represent her impression of a space through the use of mixed media like sculpture, video, and photography. Hers is an imaginary world based on real places, sometimes populated by dolls and figurines, and lit dramatically by LCD screens and film stills to add a flicker of life. For her latest multimedia installation debuting on November 20th, Snelling wanted to capture the vulnerability and strength found in poverty-stricken slums around the world. “My installation, “One Thousand Shacks”, demonstrates the perilous situation that the world’s poor face, the social problems, as well as the strength that is demonstrated as they struggle to survive,” she says in her work statement. The piece is a multimedia sculptural installation consisting of a 5 meter tall x 3 meter wide wall of little shacks, piled high in what she calls an organized mess. “They are attached to each other and appear as an insurmountable entity, giving weight to the 1.5 billion poverty-stricken people,” she says. “I hope to bring a larger awareness to the problem of poverty through this installation, and on a deeper level, to express the full experience of humanity- the good, bad, and in-between.”
Tracey Snelling’s “One Thousand Shacks” will be revealed at contemporary artist Idan Levin’s studio in Oakland, CA on November 20th. Tracey Snelling will also be one of the artists in our MOCA exhibit next year.
One Thousand Shacks film footage (rough cut) from tracey snelling on Vimeo.
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