Susan Harbage Page

Boardinghouse Arts Opens

2026-09-20T13:01:14.556-04:00

Thrilled that Laura Ritchie and Shirlette Ammons have opened Boardinghouse Arts in Durham. They have put years into making this happen and I am excited for all of the future collaborations which this wonderful inclusive space and community will generate.

I was honored to have my work included in the Inaugural Exhibition "Art Lives Here." You can see my Pink Madonna Sculpture poking out of the crowd in the lower left of this image.

Thanks to Frank Konhaus for the photos.

Adoléscere Opened at La Vaccheria in Rome Yesterday

2026-09-13T07:10:05.141-04:00

Our exhibition organized and Curated by Laura VDB Facchini and Wind Mill opened yesterday at La Vaccheria in Rome. I was unable to be there so these photos are thanks to Olga Teksheva and Monica Serandrea. This is the third and final stop for the exhibition. It was previously exhibited in Empoli and in L'Aquila.

Photo above by Monica Serandrea.

Photos below by Olga Teksheva

CEASEFIRE

2026-09-03T11:20:22.397-04:00

Ceasefire is my response to the continual destruction and genocide carried out by the U.S. and Israel against the State of Palestine in Gaza. This work has many variations; sometimes it is a single loaf of bread, other times it is multiple loaves of bread combined with gold-leafed objects and suitcases. Bread is at once a daily staple food and a symbol of resilience, survival and siege. Amid widespread blockages, destroyed infrastructure, and severe shortages of flour and fuel, a single piece of bread represents the fundamental fight to stay alive.

Bread is often referred to as white gold. In Maram Humaid’s article “Flour, Fire and Fear” she states (July 2025 published by Al Jazeera) “Flour means bread – white gold people are dying for every single day. Every cup I add to the dough feels heavy. I whisper to myself: “Just two cups”. Then I add a little more, then a bit more, hoping to somehow stretch these little bits into enough bread to last the day.”

“Many have resorted to begging. Some have chosen death for a piece of bread or a handful of flour.”

Susan Harbage Page

· https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/7/22/flour-fire-and-fear-as-i-try-to-parent-in-a-starving

What can be carried

through the loss and hunger,

through the broken structures,

except a little bread

and the hope of peace?

Peter Hughes

"Ceasefire" (Cessate il fuoco) è la mia risposta alla continua distruzione e al genocidio perpetrati dagli Stati Uniti e da Israele contro lo Stato di Palestina a Gaza. Quest'opera presenta molte varianti: a volte consiste in una singola pagnotta, altre volte in più pagnotte abbinate a oggetti ricoperti di foglia d'oro e/o valigie. Il pane è, allo stesso tempo, un alimento base quotidiano e un simbolo di resilienza, sopravvivenza e condizione d'assedio. Tra blocchi diffusi, infrastrutture distrutte e gravi carenze di farina e carburante, un singolo pezzo di pane rappresenta la lotta fondamentale per restare in vita.

Il pane viene spesso definito "oro bianco". Nell'articolo di Maram Humaid "Flour, Fire and Fear" (Farina, fuoco e paura), pubblicato da Al Jazeera nel luglio 2025, si legge: "Farina significa pane: l'oro bianco per cui la gente muore ogni singolo giorno. Ogni tazza che aggiungo all'impasto mi sembra pesante. Sussurro a me stessa: 'Solo due tazze'. Poi ne aggiungo un po' di più, poi ancora un po', sperando di riuscire in qualche modo a far bastare quelle piccole quantità per coprire il fabbisogno della giornata".

"In molti sono arrivati a chiedere l'elemosina. Alcuni hanno scelto la morte pur di ottenere un pezzo di pane o una manciata di farina".

Susan Harbage Page

Spectral Esthetics: Visualizing the Crises of Migrant Disappearance

2026-06-10T08:52:22.323-04:00

Congratulations to China Medel ob the publication of her new book Spectral Esthetics: Visualizing the Crises of Migrant Disappearance is out.

She writes about my images from the U.S.-Mexico Border project. Will share more when I have my copy in hand.

DESCRIPTION
Analyzing how artists reimagine migrant disappearance and visibility at
the US–Mexico border.
In the mid-1990s, the US government implemented Prevention through
Deterrence, a major buildup of troops, walls, and surveillance around El Paso
and San Diego. Cut off from these crucial urban crossings, migrants flowed into
the dangerous surrounding deserts, where some ten thousand have since died.
This is all according to plan: Pentagon documents describe the strategy of
funneling migrants toward “mortal danger.”
In this bracing critique, China Medel explores the aesthetics enabling and
resisting the crisis of migrant death. The nation-state’s performance of
sovereignty along the border, predicated on mass casualties, is tolerated and
even celebrated, thanks to the images in our heads of racialized and therefore
criminal bodies, made invisible as they disintegrate in the baking sand. Spectral
Aesthetics shows how state officials and mainstream media, relying on
postracial ideologies and white-supremacist agendas, collectively foster this
picture of a brown body so abject that it is disposable. In close readings of
artworks contesting this murderous visual regime, Medel discovers an alternative
kind of sight, one emphasizing the ghostly traces of the dead. These are images
not of the individual “alien” but of life itself, indisposable.

adoléscere - L'Aquilla - June 10

2026-06-03T03:32:34.118-04:00

The next stop for our exhibitions adoléscere is coming up on June the 10th, 2026. The opening in Empoli was vibrating with energy. There were so many artists present! The texts and images joined together from so many women talk about an important time of transition often joyous but also often accompanied by shame. Don't miss this exhibition if you are in the area.

Lizzy Sainsbury Hanako Kumazawa, Susan Harbage Page. Great to catch up with old friends. Images pn this post are all from the opening in Empoi,

Cartografie Della VIsibiità

2026-05-24T11:48:33.215-04:00

Happy to report that my first talk and conference totally in Italian went well.

My talk was entitled "Cartografie Della Visibilità/Cartographies of Visibility and the conference La Voce Silienziosa Delle Donne/The Silent Voice of Women. All took place on May 23, 2026 at the Villa Mosaici, Spello. Thanks to Irene Falcinelli and Roberta Pinto for the invite.

Other speakers included:

Rita Lizzi, Docente di Storia Romana, Dipartamento di Lettere – Università degli Studi di Peruga Membro Dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

"Alle Origini della discriminazione femminile: spigolando tra le fonti antiche"

.....

Giacomo Baldessarini – Storico dell'antichità e dell tarda-antichità – Universitaqà degli studi di Bologna

"Oltre il binarismo: corpi e generi non conformi e la loro performitività, alcune evidenze storiche"

.....

The conference was a project of HISPELLUM.

Coming up on May 23

2026-05-13T19:21:52.265-04:00

Excited to participate in this conference my talk is entitled:

Cartographie di Visibilità

Harbage Page indaga i segni e i simboli del lavoro e dell'autonomia femminile.

Le sue opere esplorano e reinterpretano queste tracce.

Le fonti includono archivi, libri antichi, diari e tessuti fatti a mano.

2026-03-29T10:14:11.059-04:00

adoléscere Exhibition Empoli- curated by Wind Mill in collaboration with SINCRESIS

2026-03-04T13:31:00.002-05:00

I'm excited to be a part of this exhibition which opens on Sunday, March 8 at Sincresis in Empoli, Italy.

The title of the exhibition is adolescĕre, inspired by the poem by Wisława Szymborska. The project addresses the theme of adolescence, a time of great change in the life of every woman.

The artists of the Women Visual Artists Database were invited to reflect on this particular period of their lives, starting from their own experiences or from others', drawing on emotions, memories, stories. For a girl, adolescence becomes a sudden journey into the adult world, which transforms her physically and psychologically with her hardly having time to become aware of the change.
The great transformation and vital energy creates new experiences and opportunities as well as a whole series of positive and negative first times in a girl's life that will remain indelible in her memory.
Wisława Szymborska's poem reflects the distance between the teenage girl and her adult self, the gap, the sense of estrangement and remoteness, but also of belonging.

My work for this exhibition focuses on menstruation and the conflicting feelings of being excited about being a woman but also of shame that surrounded my first period.

Adolocenza

Aspettare

Desiderio

Non sapere

Divenire

Adolescence

Waiting

Desiring

Not knowing

Becoming

adolescĕre

curated by Windmill
in collaboration with Sincresis

Women Visual Artists Database opening
Sunday, March 8th 2026

11 am

Me - a teenager?

If she suddenly stood, here, now, before me, would I need to treat her as near and dear, although she's strange to me, and distant?

Wisława Szymborska

Translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Barańczak

The Sincresis association of Empoli hosts the exhibition project proposed by the Rome-based Windmill association, which draws inspiration from the theme of adolescence, a time of great change in every woman's life. Artists from around the world in the Women Visual Artists Database are invited to reflect on this particular period in their lives, starting from their own experiences, drawing on emotions, memories, and experiences. For a girl, adolescence becomes a sudden journey into the adult world, which transforms her physically and psychologically almost before she has time to be aware of it. The great transformation and vital energy that this period brings creates new experiences, new opportunities, and a whole series of firsts, both positive and negative, in a girl's life that will remain indelible in her memory.Wisława Szymborska's poetry reflects the distance between the teenage girl and her adult self, the gap, the sense of estrangement and remoteness, but also of belonging. The invited artists engage with themselves, choosing from their own teenage and older lives the theme and inspiration to create works on paper in vertical A4 format, and accompany their work with a text. The body of works offers a panorama of emotions and memories, of internal conflicts, testimony to the relationship with one's own body that changes in that of a woman. A touching, female story told through images and text, in which people can recognize their own experiences and engage with them.The exhibition project is designed to "travel" to different cities and countries, stimulating discussions, performances, and public engagement, particularly with adolescents. At the end of the exhibition, the works and accompanying texts will be published as an artist's book, which will be donated to a public institution. The book will also be published in digital format, downloadable free of charge from the nonprofit Wind Mill Association website.

COMUNE DI EMPOLI

www.windmillart.it

March 8 – March 28, 2026
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM by appointment

SINCRESIS

Via della Repubblica nn. 52/54 Empoli Tel. 0571 73619

www.sincresisarte.com https://www.facebook.com/sincresisarteformazione/?locale=it_IT

Adolescėre, March 8, Empoli, Italy

2026-03-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

Adolescerėre Artiste del Women Visual Artists Database.

Excited to participate in this exhibition. Hope to see you in Empoli on the 8th of March

Venice - Emily Harvey Residency 2026

2026-02-19T12:00:00.002-05:00

CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE IMAGINATION

Thanks again to the Emily Harvey Foundation and a wonderful month in Venice. I began a new collaboration with poet Peter Hughes based on a series of Maps from 1821 which archive the 31 catholic parishes in Venice. Here are a few photos of our time there
and further explanation about the work which is still in process.

My work has in the past focused on the U.S.-Mexico Border and interventions and performances about bordering. I have literally become the border by lying down on the border line in the middle of the Espejos en el puente Progreso-Nuevo Progreso bridge (2012). My previous works include actions of intervening with border maps such as sewing, erasing and amplifying the audio sound of the erasing, as well as interacting with an 8 x 8-foot map in a performance which includes sewing, constructing a garment out of it, sleeping under it, measuring my body against it, etc. My photographic work which includes images of building border walls, and border patrol and the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border explores the continuous theater of the border enacted by nation states.

Territories have often been created by powerful men who negotiated space and people's lives by drawing a line across a map while sitting at a table in a faraway space – separating families, cultures, and social groups. Alfred Korzybski remarked that “The Map is not the Territory” and the “Word is not the thing”. These are fundamental in my thinking about our new maps.

In the Venice work it was important for me to think about deconstructing the power behind maps and mapmakers. Who have they been made to support and who have they been created to exclude. The basic premise is that mapping is often about particular power structures and their viewpoint. In this new feminist cartography, we share and collect information based not on the historic patriarchal point of view but from a specific position or alternative view. We focus on power, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives about colonialist presents and histories. It is a new mutable way of thinking about mapping.

Our project initiated with the phrase “cartographies of the imagination.” Our maps would allow us to cross over time and space, from personal viewpoints to political and historical images as we traversed the 118 islands over our month-long stay.

Peter Hughes, poet and founding editor of Oystercatcher Press, was inspired by poet and friend Peter Riley. Riley wrote a work in the 1970s tracing and retracing a journey from France over the mountains into Spain. This work, called 'The Linear Journal' (Grosseteste Press 1973) included two sketch maps. As well as notating route, place names and topographical features, these maps included such unexpected terms as 'horsefly', 'sadness', 'joy' and 'democracy'. Such additions serve to question what maps are for, and how subjectivity always overlaps with the objective. They also make the maps more creative, poetical and entertaining. Peter Hughes was keen to bring these innovative reinterpretations of 'mapping' to our Venice project.

Emily Harvey Foundation Residency - Cartography of the Imagination

2026-01-09T11:12:00.006-05:00

A quick shout out and thanks to the Emily Harvey Foundation for a wonderful residency in Venice. I collaborated with poet Peter Hughes on a new project "Cartography of the Imagination". The new work is a feminist cartography based on a series of maps made in 1821 which archive the 31 catholic parishes of Venice.

More to come. But for now here are a few images from social media posts.

Paris Photo "Violent Images" Book Launch, Sunday, November 16

2025-11-12T13:37:00.002-05:00

VIOLENT IMAGES

Paris Photo Book Launch - Sunday, November 16 at 4:15 pm at Offprint,at Césure (https://cesure.paris).

Super excited about the book launch for "Violent Images" at Paris Photo.

Photographs from my Blue Circle Intervention in Laredo Texas are included. I drew circles with blue chalk around objects left on the border by people who had just crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S., a temporary cartography of a great northern migration.

“Violent Images” is edited by Eva Leitolf and Giulia Cordin and published by the Faculty of Design & Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano/Italy with Nero Editions. The book is the successor to the previous volume Landscape with(out) Locus (https://www.neroeditions.com/product/landscape-without-locus/).

This is an academic research project including text contributions by Stephanie Polsky/Pratt Institute, Roland Bleiker/The University of Queenland, Elissa Mailänder/Sciences Po, Lorenzo Gabrielli/GRITM-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Amarela Varela-Huerta/Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de Mexico and Roland Meyer/Universität Zürich/ZHdK.

Emily Harvey Foundation Fellowship Award

2025-10-03T06:58:00.003-04:00

Heading to Venice in December thanks to a fellowship I was awarded by the Emily Harvey Foundation. I'm thinking about cartography, textiles, and whatever doors open my way.

Will be collaborating with poet Peter Hughes during the month long residency.

Traciare I Confini - Andrea Masala

2025-09-02T11:49:00.001-04:00

Grateful to have my work noted in this recent publication by Andrea Masala.

ARTEX, Todi - I will Survive

2025-09-01T11:26:00.004-04:00

venerdì 5 Settembre 18:30

inaugurazione

I WILL SURVIVE!

35 Artisti

Kit di sopravvivenza

Nido dell'Aquila - TODI

Happy to be participating in this Exhibition!

Hope to see you at the opening this Friday in Today at 6:30pm

Susan Harbage Page

What would artists put in their "survival kit" ?
the question was prompted by the video "What's in my bag" in which the EU Crisis Management Commissioner advises her citizens what to take with them in case of wars, emergencies and disasters.

Cosa metterebbero gli artists nel loro "Kit di sopravvivenza" ?
la domanda è stata suscitata dal video "What's in my bag" in cui la Commissaria Europea per la gestione delle crisi UE consiglia ai suoi cittadini cosa portare con sé in caso di guerre, emergenze e catastrofi.

Thanks to VIrginia Ryan for curating this and asking the question!

Rita Albertini Fabio Giorgi Alberti

Paola Babini Karen Bamonte

Polly Brooks Sara Cancellieri

Andrés Felipe Castaño Caterina Ciuffetelli

Mario Consiglio Lea Contestabile

Luca Costantini Christine Fayon

Marino Ficola Danilo Fiorucci

Fausto Maria Franchi

Sylvie Franquet Luigi Fuchi

Benedetta Galli

Gruppo Make Art Not Walls Trevi

Susan Harbage Page llimine

Olena Koshel Myriam Laplante

Nea Lindgren Graziano Marini

Attilio Quintali Paolo Romani

Virginia Ryan Romanoleli Michela Santoro

Martin Stubenrauch Sandor Valy

Carol Venezia Marisa Zencich

Cervo Zoppo

Cameron Art Museum Acquires Peter's World Portfolio for Permanent Collection

2025-08-17T11:47:00.006-04:00

The Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC has acquired a portfolio of ten prints from my Peter's World series. This early work is close to home as it is a long term project with my nephew Peter who is on the autism spectrum.

The series began with me photographing him and his daily life. In the second stage of the collaboration, I gave him a polaroid camera and he began making his own photographs. He often dressed up as characters from plays and movies. His favorite characters were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I would often set up lights and a background and we would make photographs together during family gatherings in Kentucky and at my home in North Carolina. Both my work and his work are in the collection of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, TX as well as the Cameron Art Museum, N.C. and the Israeli Museum. It is Included in the book Disability and Art History: Interdisciplinary Disability Studies, essay by Ann Millett-Gallant, Ashgate, UK; Artists and Muses: Peter’s World and Other Photo Essay by Susan Harbage Page” (1986-2000)

In the Path, Asheville, North Carolina, 1989

Peter with Light Saber, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1994

Peter with Clown Mask, 1994

Monument to Lifegivers at Davidson College

2025-08-16T11:32:00.002-04:00

I've been meaning to post about this work for quite some time. Monument to Life Givers denotes the end of a long odyssey for me of making annual trips to the border to work on the U.S.–Mexico Project and specifically the Anti-Archive of Trauma. It was completed for the exhibition "Embodied Cartography in Territorial Disputes"at Davidson College in 2022. I am grateful to Lia Newman the director for helping me with the audio which accompanies the work and it's first installation. Susan Harbage Page 2025

Monument to Lifegivers VIDEO WITH AUDIO HERE

Monument to Life Givers from the U.S.–Mexico Border Project, Susan Harbage Page 2022

Monument to Life Givers, October 2022, objects collected at the U.S.–Mexico border, 20 x 17.5 x 18.125 inches, audio from Ahtziri Gonsález, Ivan Mayerhofer, Miriam Martínez, Cinthya Ramírez Ramírez, Glenda Wertheimer. Thanks to Warren Hicks and Alex Maness.

To create Monument to Life Givers, Harbage Page made 53 bricks, one for each person who died after being abandoned by human smugglers on Quintana Road in San Antonio, TX, on June 27, 2022. The bricks are made from compressed clothing and other objects left behind by fellow border crossers along the U.S.–Mexico border, once part of Harbage Page’s Anti- Archive of Trauma on the U.S.–Mexico Border. These objects are the kinds of things that typically aid coroners and investigators in identifying the bodies of those who have died trying to cross the border.

The 53 individuals, ranging in age from 13 to 55 years old, lost their lives in an effort to seek shelter, home, safety, and a better life for themselves, their families, and their extended commu- nities. As viewers move closer to the monument, the names of the 53 individuals who died are audible, read by local members of the Davidson community.

Monumento a los portavidas, octubre 2022, objetos recolectados en la frontera EE. UU.-México y recon- vertidos en ladrillos, 20 x 17.5 x 18.125 pulgadas, audio leído por Ahtziri Gonsález, Ivan Mayerhofer, Miriam Martínez, Cinthya Ramírez Ramírez, Glenda Wertheimer. Gracias a Warren Hicks and Alex Maness.

Para crear Monumento a los portavidas, Harbage Page creó 53 ladrillos, uno para cada persona encontrada el 27 de junio 2022 que había fallecido tras ser abandonada por traficantes en el camino de Quintana Road en San Antonio, Tejas. Los ladrillos están hechos de ropa comprimida y otros objetos descartados por personas que sí cruzaron la frontera EE. UU.-México y que una vez formaron parte del Anti-archivo del trauma en la frontera EE. UU.-México de Harbage Page. Estos objetos son el tipo

de cosas que típicamente ayudan a los médicos forense y a los investigadores a identificar los cuerpos de aquellas personas que murieron intentando cruzar la frontera.

Los 53 individuos, de entre 13 a 55 años de edad, perdieron sus vidas en su intento de conseguir un lugar de acogida, un hogar y una vida mejor para ellos, sus familias y sus comu- nidades. Al acercarse al monumento, los nombres de las 53 personas que murieron se pueden escuchar ya que son leídos por miembros locales de la comunidad de Davidson.

Adela Ramírez Quezada, Honduras, 27 years old/de 27 años

Alejandro Andino, Honduras, 23 years old/de 23 años

Belkis Anariba Cáceres, Honduras, 33 years old/de 33 años

Fernando Redondo Caballero, Honduras, 18 years old/de 18 años

Margie Paz Grajeda, Honduras, 25 years old/de 25 años

Yazmin Nayarith Bueso Núnez, Honduras, 37 years old/de 37 años

Aracely Marroquín Coronado, Guatemala, 21 years old/de 21 años

Blanca Ramírez Crisóstomo, Guatemala, 23 years old/de 23 años

Celestina Ambrosio Orozco, Guatemala, 22 years old/de 22 años

Deisy López Ramírez, Guatemala, 24 years old/de 24 años

Doniz Gálvez De León, Guatemala, 19 years old/de 19 años

Enrique Chávez, Guatemala, 37 years old/de 37 años

Fidelino Ramírez Sánchez, Guatemala, 28 years old/de 28 años

Francisco Tepaz Simai, Guatemala, 22 years old/de 22 años

Jonny Tziquin Tzoc, Guatemala, 17 years old/de 17 años

Juan Tulul Tepaz, Guatemala, 14 years old/de 14 años

Juan Vásquez Morales, Guatemala, 24 years old/de 24 años

Karla López España, Guatemala, 22 years old/de 22 años

María Ramírez Alvarado, Guatemala, 24 years old/de 24 años

Nicolás Meletz Guarcax, Guatemala, 31 years old/de 31 años

Pascual Melvin Guachiac Sipac, Guatemala, 13 years old/de 13 años

Sebastián Och Mejía, Guatemala, 31 years old/de 31 años

William Ramírez Alvarado, Guatemala, 19 years old/de 19 años

Yeison Jiménez Abelarde, Guatemala, 20 years old/de 20 años

Denis Nis Barrios, Guatemala, 20 years old/de 20 años

Rudy Chilel Yoc, Guatemala, 35 years old/de 35 años

Wilson Ambrosio López, Guatemala, 20 years old/de 20 años

Álvaro Ojeda Salazar, México, 23 years old/de 23 años

Efraín Ferrel García, México, 22 years old/de 22 años

Fernando Gallegos García, México, 38 years old/de 38 años

Francisco Javier Delgado Rodríguez, México, 32 years old/de 32 años

Gustavo Daniel Santillán Santillán, México, 27 years old/de 27 años

J Marcial Trejo Hernández, México, 38 years old/de 38 años

Jair Valencia Olivares, México, 20 years old/de 20 años

Javier Flores López, México, 35 years old/de 35 años

Jesús Álvarez Ortega, México,43 years old/de 43 años

José Guadalupe López Muñiz, México, 35 years old/de 35 años

Jozue Díaz Gallardo, México, 34 years old/de 34 años

Juan Jesús Trejo Téllez, México, 31 years old/de 31 años

Juan Valeriano Domitilo, México, 55 years old/de 55 años

María Guadalupe Montero Serrato, México, 28 years old/de 28 años

Mariano Santiago Hipólito, México, 32 years old/de 32 años

Mayra Beltrán Frausto, México, 31 years old/de 31 años

Misael Olivares Monterde, México, 16 years old/de 16 años

Omar Rico Almanza, México, 29 years old/de 29 años

Pablo Ortega Álvarez, México, 20 years old/de 20 años

Pedro Telles González, México, 16 years old/de 16 años

Yovani Valencia Olivares, México, 16 years old/de 16 años

José Antonio Pérez Ramírez, México, 29 years old/de 29 años

Julio López López, México, 32 years old/de 32 años

Marcos Antonio Velasco Velasco, México, 18 years old/de 18 años

Miriam Ramírez García, México, 22 years old/de 22 años

Óscar Aguado Romero, México, 30 years old/de 30 años

Ceasefire, 2025

2025-08-16T06:06:00.001-04:00

Ceasefire, 2025, Susan Harbage Page

Bread and Ink, Found broken gold-leafed architectural objects and found suitcase.

What can be carried

through the loss and hunger,

through the broken structures,

except a little bread

the hope of peace?

Peter Hughes

I WILL SURVIVE, Palazzo Frezza, L'Aquila, 24 Luglio/30 Agosto

2025-08-16T06:02:00.001-04:00

"What would you put in your survival kit?" asks curator Virginia Ryan for this traveling exhibition.

I WILL SURVIVE! Cosa hanno messo gli artisti nel loro kit di sopravvivenza? è il titolo della mostra allestita a Palazzo Frezza de L’Aquila. Una chiamata alla solidarietà e alla condivisione, un annuncio di speranza.

https://segnonline.it/i-will-survive/?https://segnonline.it/i-will-survive/?fsp_sid=9673&fbclid=IwQ0xDSwMEQL9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHi5WsLWI1t6kgBZQp6NrxtSroTLLLhNqG3cavze161aH4c7HmdDzLnudMeWB_aem_IRuGyLoSbQvz3U4gGJmftw

Ceasefire, 2025, Susan Harbage Page

Ana Martinez -Puppet and Spirit --- Relics, Artifacts, and Bones

2025-02-04T15:20:00.003-05:00

Congrats to Ana Martinez for her new publication. She includes my work in Chapter 14 Relics, Artifacts, and Bones: Activating Migrancy's Traces Through Performance.

Link to the Book is here.

https://www.routledge.com/Puppet-and-Spirit-Ritual-Religion-and-Performing-Objects-Volume-II-Contemporary-Branchings-Secular-Benedictions-Activated-Energies-Uncanny-Faiths/Orenstein-Cusack/p/book/9780367713799?srsltid=AfmBOopkns5VJkGs_3s6pRYiU17jbVE2DrfDTwSIE60jfMR14Arcdx5L

..........................

Thanks to Ana for highlighting this important subject.

Shifts - Body as Border

2025-01-07T06:33:00.003-05:00

SHIFTS - 2022

Shifts - A conceptual series of photographic self-portraits thinking about bordering and bodies.

The painting is gouache on old maps I found at a flea market in Italy. I took the maps apart and rearranged them into this borderline.....blue references water for me in this work and the black interrupted line the traditional marking on a map for a border or division of some sort. I have also been thinking recently about "The Commons" and how that historically existed. These were made as I prepared documentation for exhibitions in Rome, Italy and Davidson, North Carolina (2022).

Thanks to Tanya Fox for making these photographs!

Cameron Art Museum - Close to Home, November 17 - March 23, 2025

2025-01-07T04:18:00.000-05:00

Close to Home (November 19, 2024 – March 23, 2025) is a celebration of CAM’s collection featuring works by artists with a connection to our state, our region, and our home. Join us as we explore images of people and places that evoke the varied spirit of our community. Hidden treasures join beloved familiar works in a showcase of artistic voices, a collective search for the meaning of home. Features work by Josef Albers, Romare Bearden, Mary Cassatt, Diego Camposeco, Elisabeth Chant, Minnie Evans, Maud Gatewood, Claude Howell, Hiroshi Sueyoshi, and others.

Close To Home Exhibition

https://cameronartmuseum.org/exhibition/close-to-home-exhibition/

Bridging Borders Performance - Susan Harbage Page and Tamara Soldan, July 17, 2023

2025-01-06T16:45:00.002-05:00

Bridging Borders, July 17, 2023, Spello, Italy

We spoke on the phone and did some planning but Tamara Soldan and I had only one day in person before our performative collaboration to finalize what we were going to do. We gathered voices from friends and colleagues talking about borders in their lives prior to coming together.

I wanted to know what people thought about borders and what exactly the word border meant to them. Tamara and I we worked their voices into a sound piece which was the basis for my mapping performance. I had just returned from the Evros river border crossing between Turkey and Greece. I was thinking about the ribbon I had held up there and the way we inscribe territory and control of that territory through mapping. How is takes more than one actor to make a border and hold it in place, therefore the border is constantly in flux and never static. You can see a photo of the action I did with a ribbon in Turkey near Evros on the flyer which we made. The trip to that border was also a return to a place I had been at ten with my mother in 1969.

The key elements in the performance were 1) Emergency Blankets, 2) Large Map, 3) Ladders 4) Reading in two languages at once 5) Music

Laura Ritchie joined out team that day and passed out shimmering and noisy emergency blankets to everyone in the audience with no specific directions. We also staged some of them with fans blowing on them. These are the blankets that immigrants are given when they reach the U.S. border from Mexico and are held in makeshift chain-link fence cages. They are indeed efficient, but they make continuous noise. It was the hottest day of the year in Spello so the Centro Studi Europeo Di Musica Medievale Adolfo Broegg (Chiesa di Santa Maria della Consolazione di Prato - Spello, Italy) was extremely hot…some folks opened the blankets, and some folks carried them home for further contemplation.

I made a large scale map combining many different forms of mapping on paper, a 17th century map of some earthworks, old road maps, military maps from World War II, maps of the U.S.- Mexico border, Italia touring maps from the 50’s, maps of the moon, a map of Berlin which Tamara had carried with her from her home there, etc. This object became the crux of the work and my performance. I shared it with each member of the audience in silence as I entered the space and then slowly explored it's objectness....unfolding it, tearing it, wearing it, crawling under it, sewing a border into it and ultimately tearing out the threads I had swen into it..

Ladders have many meanings. I have a strong memory of my father in grey striped overalls flecked in Wedgewood blue as he painted our house, a ladder which represented care, work, and stability. In my many trips to the U.S.– Mexico border I was stunned to see wooden ladders piled up against the border wall. They were handmade. People floated them across the Rio Grande in parts and then walked the distance to the wall where they were assembled and used to cross into what they hoped to be a better life. In Spello, Italy wooden ladders are symbols of the olive harvest. The hallmark tool is a handmade wooden ladder that fits between the branches of the olive tree. The olive harvest is a yearly event which involves every member of the family and marks the passing of a year which is celebrated with meals, festivals, and olive tastings. I am fascinated by the beauty of these ladders and asked our local farm store Fastellini (Mangimi e Sementi) if they would lend me some for the installation and performance, which they generously did. During the performance I slowly raised and lowered a ladder in the middle of the church.

The fourth element of the work was a mash up of language and communication. Tamara and I read the same text in different languages at the same time. My language English and for Tamara Italian. They were the words we had gathered from people speaking about borders. Our words connected, disconnected, were out of sync but also vibrated as the words and emotional effects of bordering fell from our mouths. We stood on either side of the ladder as we performed.

Tamara also performed some of her sonorous work during the performance.

Posting photos to fill in the blanks below.

Thanks to my friends for providing documentation...including Laura Ritchie, Lex Ulbari, Virginia Ryan, Brenda McLeran and others.

Celebrating 25 Years at the McColl Center - Artist Spotlight

2024-11-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Congrats to the McColl Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was so fortunate to have many ties to the McColl Center through a residency, exhibitions, and leading/teaching workshops through the Innovation Institute. It is a place of community, dialogue and a commons for the arts.

Here is the link to the full Artist Spotlight

https://mccollcenter.org/press-news/alumni-artist-spotlight-susan-harbage-page?fbclid=IwY2xjawGfV0xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRlxi8IcFS0akbH_uFPl2hQjO7glmJaFlyrPf0qMK7BKkInLbWehvjrclg_aem_fXp9jy9wP6jwRKzxklscGA