Dealing With Loss
Performance
Dealing with Loss is a series of performance photographs that talk about the rituals we need to create for ourselves in order to properly grieve. Coming from a religious background where the rituals are are already created to mourn the loss of human life, the artist questions what happens when a person no longer subscribes to those specific rituals or beliefs.
Dressing in an outfit that represents her own human life, and the skeletal remains that will one day be her own body, the artist creates a succession of actions with the intention of creating a new space where loss can be acknowledged, felt, and released.
Working with her own symbol for unnecessary loss- the skull of a moose who has been shot by hunters who did not take away or use the body, the artist ties herself to its remains. Walking in the cold, staying with the body, tying and untying herself, the artist stays, freezing and mourning, for over 6 hours. Finally, when some sort of release is felt, the artist gives up the corpse back to its natural habit, leaving it to its natural process of decaying back into the universe.
