New Demands? Performance
2103
New York NY
Performed in collaboration with Grace Exhibition and Performance Space.

From the series New Demands? (2011-2023)

This public walking performance commemorated two important events in American labor history: the 1909-1910 New York Shirt Waist Strike, and the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire. In 1909-1910, over 20,000 mostly immigrant women garment workers went on strike for better working conditions. They won the right to a 52 hour work week, a wage increase, and four paid holidays a year. However the agreement was not signed by the owners of the Triangle Waist Company. In March 1911, a deadly fire broke out at the factory, killing 146 workers who were trapped inside.

For the performance, I walked between four historically important sites associated with these events: the site of former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory building at 23–29 Washington Place (now part of New York University); the former national headquarters of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union at 11 Waverly Place; Cooper Union Auditorium, where workers and the Union voted to strike in 1909; and the site of a reception and fundraiser in support of the strikers in 1910, at 19-23 St Mark’s Place, formerly Arlington Hall. The placard in the performance is adapted from banners reading "We Mourn Our Loss", carried at a funeral march and protest organized by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union following the Triangle Factory Fire.

Photo: Amber Lee