Conditional Learning, 2004
Individuals entered into a room where I was seated in a chair. They were then asked to stand behind me and point what appeared to be a functional gun at my head while asking me a question about themselves. They were told I would be punished if I guessed incorrectly. If I answered incorrectly, an assistant covered me in ice water and then took the prop gun from the participant. As the performance progressed, each new participant entered the room to the sight of me in greater distress and frustration as I continued to guess each question incorrectly. Only one participant refused to hold the gun. No one refused to participate.
Medicine Wheel Project, 2007
These images are from a performance I did at Links Hall in Chicago in the fall of 2007. It brought together video and live performance to highlight my two year journey as an egg donor, an endeavor I took on to help pay for my MFA. I created a circle with the vials and syringes I had used and collected over the two-year period. For the past year, I had been questioning Western medicine and its relationship to, and mirroring of, Christianity. I found my act of creating life without sex to be rich with meaning and interpretation. I intentionally used the term “medicine wheel” to juxtapose the notion of healing against the often destructive forms of medicine found in Western culture.
There are no pretty words here. There is no beauty.
My grandmother believed in destinations not journeys. She never told you how to get somewhere, she would just point to the stars and ask you which one you wanted to be. My mother was the same way. I never had a plan for life. I never expected to live very long anyway. So instead I grabbed onto every stray fiber of opportunity and rode it as far as it would take me.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,
19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37.
Grandma, I picked out a star and I grabbed its tail and I rode it as far as I could, but I didn’t quite get there. I missed it. Instead, I landed on the floor of a studio apartment, staring at the rug burns on my knees and the cockroaches in the carpet. I thought I had been pretty good at math in school. But as many times as I did the arithmetic in my head it never added up. 16 plus 21 = ?
The first time to stay here. That’s it. Just 16. But that was before I had to do it again. Then it was 21. There was no other way, he said. I saw a glimpse of the sun and I chased it until my insides bled out between my legs. I never stopped to think, because I knew if I did the weight would break the fractured bone of a heart that lived in my chest.
37 alters. 37 funerals. 37 birthdays. 37 names. 37 apologies. 37 seconds of clarity. 37 minutes of thankfulness. 37 days of mindfulness. 37 months of penance. 37 years of remembering. 37 lifetimes of wondering.
