1992

shifting thresholds

Gallery 101 (Ottawa, Ontario)

The work consists of three colour photographic prints, multiple black and white glass transfers with acetates laid over the stairwell, plaster work and the following text inlaid into a free-standing three tiered shelving unit also containing a woman's hand-made burial shroud used in the Jewish Orthodox burial ritual.

SHIFTING THRESHOLDS

(passages)
shrouded rites
obscure rights
 
MONUMENTAL representations commemorate bodies
markers and surfaces of grief reflect layers of mourning
 
manifesting outward / boundaries
b
e
t
w
e
e
n
public and private
 
options and privileges dependant on
social restrictions
behaviours RITUALIZED
 
uphold the visual culture of continuity and difference
 
 
 
personal identity
replaced by signs serving more than
 
 
the mere remembrance of that INDIVIDUAL fabrications and manipulations of his(her/s)tory / heritage
patterns woven in the social fabric secure a culture from fragmentation
 
 
 
the hand sewn cloth alleges an individuality (
 
identity)
only to a point
what spaces open as a vast indeterminate
 
within the social and personal
how do the SILENCES get filled?