Stop Predatory Gambling

“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.

by Les

Somerville, Massachusetts artist Edie Bresler presents her month-long participatory installation “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”. Bresler’s installation is at the Inside-Out Davis Square Art Windows located on Elm St between Dover and Day St.

The Installation focuses on the small local shops where lottery tickets are sold, and the resulting revenues the Somerville community is becoming more dependent upon. Bresler’s installation includes intimate photographs of the locally owned convenience stores and liquor stores that make up the largest retailers of lottery tickets as well as charts and graphs synthesizing long term lottery data, illustrating the ways it directly affects Somerville residents.

Throughout the month of December, Bresler invites the community to contribute their personal stories about the lottery, money, power, and desire. Bresler seeks to create a collective discourse emphasizing the social role of art while the Commonwealth prepares to pass legislation to build three casinos and the grass roots Occupy movement simultaneously brings local income inequalities to light.

The Massachusetts lottery is a state-run program that earns billions of dollars annually. The state has the highest per capita spending on lottery tickets in the nation at $806.57 per person. Every year, 351 municipalities across the state depend on the small portion of direct local aid they receive from lottery profits. The state’s lottery revenues also supply 100% of the arts funding for the Massachusetts Cultural
Council and the Mass Council of Compulsive Gambling. In 2011 Massachusetts players spent $4.47 billion dollars on lottery tickets and $55 million of that total was spent in Somerville.

Bresler says, “Many people loathe being on line behind someone playing their daily numbers or buying scratch tickets, but I would urge us all to re-evaluate the social space of these purchases and their direct effect on our local economy.”

There are a total of 96 stores currently selling lottery tickets in Somerville. Bresler’s data includes local players’ lottery tickets spending at these stores from 2001 through 2011. Alongside these vital statistics are portraits of local vendors, like Frank and Rafaella DiFonzo, who have been the proprietors of Bill’s Food Shop on Conwell Avenue for 54 years and Inêz and Antonio Andrade who have run the Cross
Street Market for 17 years.

Bresler will include written comments by Somerville residents and passers-by in the installation throughout the month resulting in a collaborative portrait of the Somerville community.

Edie Bresler is a long-time resident of Somerville. She teaches photography and digital imaging in the department of Art & Music at Simmons College and recently became a finalist in Photography for the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Bresler’s work is in public and private collections including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Fidelity Bank, Neiman Marcus and The Whitehead Institute. Her Massachusetts-based solo shows include the Bernard Toale Gallery, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Trustman Art Gallery and the Fletcher Priest Gallery. In New York, Bresler’s solo exhibitions most notably include the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery, CEPA, and the Visual Studies Workshop.

The artist will be present from Noon-4pm (weather permitting) on the dates below:
Week 1: Thursday December 1, Friday December 2, and Sunday December 4
Week 2: Monday December 5, Thurs December 8, and Friday December 9
Week 3: Monday December 12, Wednesday December 14, and Sunday December 18
Week 4: Monday December 19, Wednesday December 21, and Thurs December 22

For images please contact the artist directly at ediephoto@gmail.com or www.ediebresler.com