Today I’d love to share with you a performance piece that I did in honor of my Grandad’s passing. I performed this four years ago in May, 2019 at Grace Exhibition Space for International Performance Art in NYC.
In this piece, I created a spiral of sand. I wrote messages to my Grandad with a walking stick along the the spiral, inwards and outwards.
A walking stick was an important object of his, and on a special walk with my family after his passing, we saw a walking stick leaned up against a post. I went back to find it for this performance, and although that particular stick was gone - another one was waiting for me. There was more magic in this moment than is easy to express in writing, but hopefully my performance captured a bit of it.
I then swept away the sand with a broom.
This piece took more effort than expected because it occurred outside and it unexpectedly rained. I think, however, this added its own poetry to this piece.