AUX Performance Space Presents "Schmart World": Whitney Kimball with Jenny Drumgoole

Whitney Kimball, Vox Populi's third AUX Curatorial Fellow, presents "Schmart World," a series of programming that celebrates and examines the rough and incandescent world of radical collective making.

For the fifth program of the "Schmart World" series, Whitney Kimball presents the work of Jenny Drumgoole, a video artist and accidental activist who has gotten involved with labor and morale issues with Philadelphia sanitation workers. The "Trash Collectors Ball" is part of an ongoing series of radical and celebratory events bringing attention to various struggles of urban sanitation workers. Drumgoole was shooting a video on the streets of Philadelphia and asked her local trash collectors to help her with one of the scenes. The workers obliged, and were so gracious that Drumgoole decided to thank them with a surprise party with refreshments, snacks, and party favors. The event "Happy Trash Day!" was a success, and became a recurring phenomenon over the course of several months. Hovering between birthday party, hardcore fan club culture, and social practice performance like Mierle Ukeles's "Touch Sanitation," each party grew more wild and memorable than the last. As Drumgoole got to know the workers, she found out that Philadelphia's sanitation union hasn't gotten a raise or a new contract in more than five years. Drumgoole received her MFA in photography from Yale University.

The AUX Curatorial Fellowships have been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

For more information, please visit the Vox Populi website.