This installation is about pain and memory. As an addict in recovery, I have lost a great deal of friends through overdose or suicide. This is tragically common in our society and in the United States drug overdose deaths are affecting young people in ways we have never seen before. The grief process is inextricably intertwined with my creative practice. Stillness and meditation give me space for reflection on the ones I have lost.
The act of being alive necessitates that I learn to live alongside my pain, and it teaches me to hold the beauty and wonder of life more preciously. We can of course try to lessen pain, blunt the edges by using sugar glass or prop knives to satisfy self-destructive or danger seeking needs. I want to walk the edge between safety and danger and be held aloft by the twin pillars to feel alive, but also stay alive.
I present an environment that envelopes the viewer within these visuals of grief and pain. The intent of this is to bring pain to the surface in order to salve the wounds we all carry. The title Open, Biting, Rending comes from an essay by M. M. Bakhtin discussing the importance of food and drink in literature, in which he states “The encounter of man with the world, which takes place inside the open, biting, rending, chewing mouth, is one of the most ancient, and most important objects of human thought and imagery... Man’s encounter with the world in the act of eating is joyful, triumphant; he triumphs over the world, devours it without being devoured himself.”
Special thanks to Lorene Anderson for sound production and Eryn Montgomery for cinematography.