Suzanne Lacy, ___________ (Ocean Park, California 1979)

This performance was funded by the Law Enforcement Agency of America to reduce crime in the middle-class neighborhood of Ocean Park in Santa Monica. Lacy was commissioned by Communitas, a community organizing group, to raise awareness of violence against women in the area. She and collaborators created a series of events, speak-outs on incest, media coverage and small dialogues, distributed leaflets, and curated an art show in thirty windows of the local commercial district.

A chain-letter dinner was initiated in July. At these dinners, women invited neighbors to share experiences and get to know each other. Each guest went home and planned her own dinner for the following week. In September, the project was celebrated with a final candlelight dinner in the local park, with 250 women who had been part of prior dinners. A large slide screen was erected between two palm trees to show slides of the performance, including a guerilla assault with art on the local porn shop, covered in the Los Angeles Times.