All Images © 2012
Justin Randolph Thompson
Dem' Golden Slippers - Trailer from Bradly Dever Treadaway on Vimeo.
Dem’ Golden Slippers is a performance and installation created for the Cuchifritos Gallery in collaboration with Stefanie Nelson, Jason Thompson and Bradly Dever Treadaway based on the street vendors and self-employed peddlers originally housed in the Essex Market. The piece explores the trade of shoe shining and hustling while setting up shop during given hours where visitors have the opportunity to get their shoes gold-leafed. The title and act are drawn from minstrel lyrics that speak of putting your best things away until judgment. The work investigates the status symbol of shoes in the urban context investing these with the shifted hierarchy of the shoe shiner as the provider of a tool for ascension and a recalibrated moral character.