Chicago, IL, September 12, 2009 --(
PR.com)-- Chicago artist Ara Lucia will direct a photo shoot of her latest work, We Vow – a “photo fable” responding to California’s controversial Prop. 8 and the ongoing national debate over same-sex marriage – in a nearby forest preserve on October 10 and 11.
A bisexual, Lucia has been married to her husband for 15 years; but the passage of Prop. 8 “was a serious blow to my sense of security and justice. I wanted to be joyful about Obama’s election, but it felt poisoned [by Prop. 8]. I cried for two weeks, and then I decided to do something about it. Which for me meant making work.”
We Vow captures images of a secret wedding between two American Victorian-era women, deep in the woods – and the powers that conspire to stop them.
Media are invited to visit a rehearsal, talk to Lucia about the piece or observe part of the shoot itself. “I’m hoping any publicity We Vow gets will highlight the damage these laws inflict on average people, who just want to publicly commit to one another,” she says.
In the creation of We Vow, Lucia acts as both director and designer. “For the photo-fable projects it all begins with the garments,” she says. “From those designs come the narrative, which leads to choices of text and image, then casting, development of setting and props, and finally the shoot itself.”
Lucia works with a team of professional technicians and artisans to realize her vision while she directs the process overall – though once on the set she primarily focuses on her actors and Director of Photography to capture the specific moments and emotions she wants to convey.
By setting the narrative in Victorian times Lucia hopes to show “how far we’ve come and how far we haven’t come, through the same lens.”
The Chicago cast enacting We Vow include Aimee Bello as Josie Laurentine, Ari Khatib as Cora Markes, Kyle Rehder as Pastor Foster, and Matt Devine as Samuel Markes. The actors all support the message of the piece and are willing to make themselves available to the press.
When completed, the collection of 12 images will only be viewable on Lucia’s website, www.aralucia.com, where they may be purchased as individual pieces or as a series.
Ara Lucia is an artist who uses multiple disciplines – photography, costume design, theater, and digital art – to create series of stylized images she calls “photo-fables.” She divides her life and work between Chicago and southwestern Michigan.
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