"All my life I have feared the mental illness that permeated my family,
and kept silent.

 

Here I have transformed family heirlooms into stories.  By “objectifying” each family member as a piece of furniture, I began to see the trauma of my family’s mental illness in new ways, and to watch as my fear changed to gratitude and compassion. What began as visual story has turned into prayer.

 

I was inspired by Eduardo Galeano who captures the essence of humanity in a single paragraph; Joseph Cornell for evoking the infinite inside a box; and by the anonymous Mexican retablo artists, who paint stories of divine intervention in personal trauma on found pieces of tin."

 
     
         
           
    Installation Title: Lineage
 

A family’s collection of antique heirlooms form a circle in a small room. The viewer is drawn to each piece, peering into interiors, circling around the sides and then the back. At each piece, a story is narrated by the artist and heard on a headset as the viewer moves from piece to piece. Subtle background music adds to the story. Together the stories convey a family’s journey of illness, silence, death and mystery. Read more...

 

 


 
 
     
     
           

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