Recetas y Gangas: The Essex Street Market Recordings

About

Over the last decade, Zúñiga has recorded the calls of vendors, particularly those from traditional Latin American markets, threading together the sounds of various products being sung into the air into compositions that modify the experience of space. The resonant sounds of vendors’ voices begin to extend the interior of the market out onto the street to create a completely new sense of familiar spaces.

For this installation Zúñiga has created an audio composition featuring the voices of the Essex Street Market vendors and customers describing their products or sharing recipes. The audio montage will be emitted by an amplified speaker located above the Delancey/Essex Subway station, on the exterior of the Essex Market, emulating the traditional selling strategies used by market vendors to beckon pedestrians into the market. The installation honors both the long history of market vendors announcing, singing or “chanting” their goods to the public, as well as Essex Street Market’s original intention as a space to house street cart vendors.

Recetas y Gangas was first conceived by Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga at the invitation of curator Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful for the exhibition Lettuce, Artichokes, Red Beets, Mangoes, Broccoli, Honey and Nutmeg: The Essex Street Market as Collaborator (Cuchifritos Gallery, on view February 26 through March 27, 2016). During this show, six socially conscious artists—Laia Solé, Antonia Pérez, Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, Mary Ting, Beatrice Glow, and Harley Spiller— were invited to engage vendors, customers and the Market itself in their artistic processes as a means of co-generating experiences centered on the life that unfolds outside Cuchifritos Gallery. The participating artists and their collaborators brought to the forefront issues relevant to their respective trades and roles, while paying attention to the narratives as well as to the material culture that their presence in the place spawns as a result of their encounters.