Thomas grew up in Northern California where he fell in love with music and photography while going to punk shows and shooting skate photos. He photography in college, which may or may not qualify him to host an art podcast. When he's not working on Art Uncovered, Thomas works as photographer, retoucher, and audio editor and also plays guitar in the band Sleepies. He lives in Queens, New York, for now.
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The Tea Project
March 19, 2012 - Tea Project performance in conjunction with Enemy Kitchen by Michael Rakowitz in Chicago, IL. (Photo by Greg Broseus) via aaronhughes.org Porcelain cups used in The Tea Project The Tea Project gallery installation This Week: Artists Aaron Hughes and Amber Ginsburg discuss The Tea Project, a project that grew out of Aaron's encounters with tea, and being offered tea, while deployed in Kuwait and Iraq as a member of the Illinois Army National Guard. The Tea Project takes a variety of forms, but it's centered around a performance in which a small audience comes together with Aaron for a discussion over tea. During the performance stories are shared and tea is served in special porcelain cups made together by Amber and Aaron. The cups are cast to resemble the styrofoam cups given to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, which the prisoners often decorated with flowers and arabesques. For The Tea Project, Amber and Aaron made over 700 of these porcelain cups, one to represent every person held at Guantanamo. The project hopes to create a space for discussion and reflection on issues ranging from detention and Islamophobia to racism and human rights. Aaron and Amber are hosting Tea Project in Chicago over the next two weeks. For more information about those events visit LinksHall.org. Playlist 00:00 - BTR Today 00:40 - The Tea Project 02:59 - Origin Stories 07:20 - Encounters with Tea 10:41 - Return to Iraq 15:16 - WW1 to Guantanamo 19:07 - Tea Performance 25:03 - The Domestic and Destruction 28:39 - Veteran Art 30:54 - Reactions 33:35 - Returning the Cups 38:47 - Finish