Kala Gallery is proud to present the exhibition Turning Tales featuring the 2017-2018 Kala Veterans Residency Program artists Adam Allegro, Fanny Garcia, Roger Ourthiague Jr., Gregory Rick and Ehren Tool with special guests Amber Hoy, and Aaron Hughes & Amber Ginsburg. The Veterans Residency Program is a new initiative at Kala Art Institute started in 2017 with support from the California Arts Council (CAC). Its goal is to encourage and support the artistic expression of veterans and the extended veteran community, and to create public dialogue and appreciation for the diverse range of veterans’ experiences.

For Turning Tales, Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes present Tea Project, a collaborative multi-faceted project that formulates conversations with the audience about their relationship to love, war, detention, torture and humanity.

Displayed in the gallery are nine porcelain cast Styrofoam teacups; one teacup for each of the nine individuals that have died while detained at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Inspired by Hughes’ friend Chris Arendt, a Guantanamo Detention Camp guard, who fell in love with drawings carved by detainees into Styrofoam cups, Hughes and Ginsburg cast 779 porcelain Styrofoam teacups, one for each individual held in extra-legal detention since 2001.

In addition to the work in the gallery, Aaron Hughes will host a tea performance on Friday, October 19 at 7pm, and a tea performance on Saturday, October 20 at 2pm after an Artist Talk by Amber Hoy at 1pm (limited to 25 for each performance). RSVP required for tea performance.

Tea Performance
A performance and discussion that explores war, detention, love, and tea. Tea Performances utilize the space created when someone sits, sips, and reflects over a cup of tea to ask questions about one’s relationship to the world: a world that’s filled with dehumanization, war, and destruction; a world that’s filled with moments of beauty, love, and humanity.

Please come sit, reflect, share, and sip tea with me. – Aaron Hughes, Iraq War Veteran