Portfolio 1
This 7.5 hour durational performance took place at the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. It was part of a larger project titled "Lacuna" that explored how institutions encourage a type of gaze on the Other that both mirrors and reproduces damaging ideas about race, belonging, and culture. The projects in the series speak back to and disrupt this gaze. For the "Seated Woman" performance, I inhabited a terrace in front of the museum, a space I saw as transitional, a point of confusion in its authority. I performed as an art object or cultural artifact, silently returning the gaze of the viewer.
The headdress that I am wearing is a mixed-media sculpture created from a welded steel frame, salvaged wire mesh, and textiles.
This image depicts the movement of my shadow over several hours of the performance.