attending to the wound: a wake, a waiting, a witnessing
collaborative Performance with Jackie Amezquita // 23:49 min
Documentation provided by LACE
attending to the wound: a wake, a waiting, a witnessing is a performance activating a collaborative installation, Hieroglyphs of metaphysical lacerations, and drawing from previous works A Poetic of Living and Sueños Fértiles. The performance starts at sunset and works through grief, solidarity, and transferring of weight. The performance addresses the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The activated installation combines LA and VA soil. Within the soil carpet connecting both sides of the gallery are soil body casts of each artist arranged like a compass and pointing in the direction of our migration paths. The LA soil is from Boyle Heights and Ladera Heights, and the VA soil from Pen Park, a former antebellum plantation and now recreation park. Within the soil bodies, salt crystals are embedded using the clothing of people in our family across generations. The salt crystals act as keloids and body adornments — highlighting sites of trauma and repair.