34 Years, Installation and Performance, 2021.

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34 Years is a project that I created in late 2021.  This project began to combine performance, repetitive mark making, installation, and mindfulness. I used my body/press to create garbage bags from discarded plastic material that I “filled” with hyperactive marks from black and red oil sticks to represent the 34 years I’ve existed.  In the performance, I created a bag for each year, and the marks and colors were determined by the memories and traumas from that corresponding year, black for benign years and red for years with trauma and pathology. While creating this work, I entered into a space of mindfulness as I moved my body and focused on the present, and I was able to better examine the years that I had experienced trauma. The project was much more than just reflection; I had agency over the trauma. I confronted the years, pulled them out of my body/press with the oil stick, placed them in a bag that I created, and tossed them away.