La Fabrique - Tania Mouraud 11/24/06

Recent Artist in Residence, Paris native Tania Mouraud, has created an interesting large-scale multic-hannel video installation at the Grand Central Art Gallery, part of the CSUF campus. The work documents the Indian cloth workers at their independent weaving stations. With 18 channels of video (14 monitors and 4 projections) the room is transformed into a factory of workers amongst noise and simple mechanization. La Fabrique challenges us not to look away, as the workers often stare directly into the lens while doing the labor that is so repetitive that it needs no specific attention. The work provides no contextual background of conditions, or place in Indian society for the workers (though some context is given in the wall write up). This forces the viewers to take it upon themselves to make their own decision about what their Western gaze on a room full of Indian workers means to them. The scale of the image of the workers within the monitors takes on a very realistic size, providing a real sense of the occupation of the space. However, the four large-scale projections of workers spinning act a bit of a distraction with no explanation of why the spinners would deserve such a greater scale than rest of the weavers. Also the low luminosity of the projected image leaves a feeling of removed otherness that the richness of the CRT monitors does not imply. Though the projections are not as richly realized as the multi-channel monitors, they do not diminish the piece, they just do not bring additional richness to the work that they could have provided. The strength of the work is in the multiple monitors transforming the space, when you enter the darkened room you leave your world and enter a constructed space of labor and life. It is definitely worth the trip to see the installation live, as documentation will just not provide the real information of what La Fabrique has to say.