mourning tents
Mourning Tents / Intersectionality / Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL / 2016
I have built mobile tents in which to mourn. My past work as extensively touched upon mourning, hearkening particularly back to Victorian rituals during the Civil War era; but I did not create an actual space to mourn in. We are allowed to mourn after someone dies, but only briefly. I wish to enable a person to mourn whenever necessary, forever.
Mourning is not a mere darkness, but is a source of comfort. The tent is a final resting place, not for the dead, but for the living. The mood befits a cemetery, beautiful and forlorn. A second tent invites others to create/curate their own mourning environment and allows a work to be in constant progress. The entire installation is mutable, exploratory and evolving.
Remove your shoes, come inside, and mourn what you have lost, what cannot be, and what has come to pass. Or perhaps you mourn nothing at all.
The opening night performance featured dancer Marissa Alma Nick and vocalist Jahzel Dotel. Collaborations continued with Kerry Philips and Carrie Sieh.
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