This morning, I had a field trip with one of my classes to the artist run centre, Studio XX. When we arrived at the centre, we were greeted by a member of the studio, given a brief overview of the organization's mandate and history and then we were told about the current, or more accurately, the most recent instillation in the space: Toronto based artist Michele Pearson Clarke's Parade of Champions (2015). I say past because the official last day of the exhibition was on Saturday and unfortunately, they began taking down the piece right after our gallery tour - or else I would encourage all of you to check out the instillation. Here is an exert:
https://vimeo.com/148414120
Shortly before making the piece, Clarke had experienced the loss of her mother which came with - and I say this quite literally - an unimaginable grief. Unimaginable, because I can't quite imagine my own mother dying and it is something I choose not to think about - that bond is too important in my life and losing her would be too painful.
As a queer black woman, Clarke made a call to other queer black people who had recently lost their mothers within the last year or so. She began the project by asking each individual to sit in silence and stillness while looking into a camera while she herself grabbed a coffee, leaving them completely alone. We watch the this footage of the contrived stillness when experiencing the piece, each interviewee has their own screen so we get to choose who we look at. Next, Clarke interviewed each of her three subjects individually, asking them about their experience: with their relationship with their mother, with their queerness, with their blackness, how they imagined what the loss of their mother would feel like, and then, what the actual components of their grief was. The soundtrack the viewer hears is the three interviews edited together within a 20 minutes or so. The interviews are layered together and organized by theme, creating a narrative - or at least a complete reflection. The instillation is set up so we, the viewer can sit and listen with them.
Clarke, in her artistic statements says: "For black queers, already unseen and othered, grieving a mother’s death requires a further pushing back against notions of disposability and invisibility." I think she explores this statement beautifully. Right now, I am still feeling the effect of the piece, my hands are shaking after listening to these testimonies. Evidently, not all of the experiences are identical. There are components of each statement that directly contrast one another but as a whole the similarities are striking. The shock of what happened, the feeling like it wasn't okay to be obviously upset after the initial period, that grief was an interior experience that had to be felt alone in private. The feeling that the person who loved you most was missing, how unprepared one is regardless of watching her lose the battle to illness (in this case cancer). That grief if something that has a distinct look, smell and sound that nobody is ever really prepared to deal with. The most unexpected aspect though, is rage, followed by the questioning of the past.
And yet, in the piece these interviewees are not alone, they are united together - and the piece feels as if it is subverting the confines and expectations around loss, and the silencing of black and queer individuals, most evidently in the title: Parade of Champions - claiming the process of grief as a form of resilience instead of an end. I think this piece resonates beautifully with our course on listening.
https://vimeo.com/148414120
Shortly before making the piece, Clarke had experienced the loss of her mother which came with - and I say this quite literally - an unimaginable grief. Unimaginable, because I can't quite imagine my own mother dying and it is something I choose not to think about - that bond is too important in my life and losing her would be too painful.
As a queer black woman, Clarke made a call to other queer black people who had recently lost their mothers within the last year or so. She began the project by asking each individual to sit in silence and stillness while looking into a camera while she herself grabbed a coffee, leaving them completely alone. We watch the this footage of the contrived stillness when experiencing the piece, each interviewee has their own screen so we get to choose who we look at. Next, Clarke interviewed each of her three subjects individually, asking them about their experience: with their relationship with their mother, with their queerness, with their blackness, how they imagined what the loss of their mother would feel like, and then, what the actual components of their grief was. The soundtrack the viewer hears is the three interviews edited together within a 20 minutes or so. The interviews are layered together and organized by theme, creating a narrative - or at least a complete reflection. The instillation is set up so we, the viewer can sit and listen with them.
Clarke, in her artistic statements says: "For black queers, already unseen and othered, grieving a mother’s death requires a further pushing back against notions of disposability and invisibility." I think she explores this statement beautifully. Right now, I am still feeling the effect of the piece, my hands are shaking after listening to these testimonies. Evidently, not all of the experiences are identical. There are components of each statement that directly contrast one another but as a whole the similarities are striking. The shock of what happened, the feeling like it wasn't okay to be obviously upset after the initial period, that grief was an interior experience that had to be felt alone in private. The feeling that the person who loved you most was missing, how unprepared one is regardless of watching her lose the battle to illness (in this case cancer). That grief if something that has a distinct look, smell and sound that nobody is ever really prepared to deal with. The most unexpected aspect though, is rage, followed by the questioning of the past.
And yet, in the piece these interviewees are not alone, they are united together - and the piece feels as if it is subverting the confines and expectations around loss, and the silencing of black and queer individuals, most evidently in the title: Parade of Champions - claiming the process of grief as a form of resilience instead of an end. I think this piece resonates beautifully with our course on listening.
I definitely wish I could have seen this exhibit in full, it looks incredible. What you say about how the subjects are "united together" really resonates with me, especially in thinking through what it looks like to be with others even when the feelings aren't comfortable, aren't positive. I was reading this book by Ann Cvetkovich called "Depression: A Public Feeling" and in it she was talking about how hard it is to see quote unquote negative feelings as something that can be experienced, shared, and worked on together, that can be something which fosters community as opposed to something which alienates one from community. She's discussing notions of depression in terms of mental health in conjunction with political depression, but I think that grief has a similar operation/position, especially when it's outside the accepted boundaries of the immediate time following the death of a loved one, and when it's enacted by someone who is outside the hegemonic norm it can only grow more complicated and treacherous to navigate.
ReplyDelete/Joshua W