Performance/Installation

2016

Projectors, Lavender, Textiles, Vintage Quilt, Antique Dishes, Shears, Vintage Hairbrush, Audio, Digital Projection, Antique Lamps, Handmade Quilt, Moss, Yard Stick

5 participants: Performer, Lover, Friend, Mentor, Stranger

Light of overhead projectors within a dark room allow the images of southern womyn leaders to be distorted and narratives at some points be unclear or disrupted. Using imagery to deconstruct and muddy the narratives  worked to create space for an audience to rebuild narrative around ones-self and their placement in the contemporary midwest. Bundles of lavender lined the walls, and taken by visitors in order to learn the names of the womyn projected in the space, providing an opportunity for education and conversation.

An audio component included in Dama Djanochi is a story of how Spanish moss came to the south. These voices and rhythms will gives the stagnant imagery and quiet performances a magical and concentrated power. 

Performance: during the night the artist performed a work which involved the audience witnessing the mundane yet meditative practice of brushing ones hair, then braiding the hair into four braids. Once the braids were produced four collaborators presented themselves to collect a pair of sheers and cut a single braid from the head one at a time. Each participant stands for a totem: a lover, a friend, a teacher, a stranger. The totems of whom a womyn is taught to desire approval from in life. Each braid was placed in a vessel , then pieced apart the strands and placed upon a hanging antique yardstick with Spanish moss.The performance was executed in company with how Spanish moss came to the south according to the story within the sound piece.

The performance lasting about 45 minutes occurred with artist and audience seated upon blankets and quilts; among stories, songs, projections and lavender in the air.