Repo / possession
is a visual prayer book and altar. Dealing with the trailer the artist and their family abandoned after it became uninhabitable, this project serves as a vehicle for conjuring the lived and living memories of the space.
Vellum is overlaid onto toned paper to produce two individual drawings that simultaneously forge a ghostly connection. Playing with temporality, presence, and “objective” reality, these drawings touch on child’s memory and matrilineal curses. They are transformed within a ritual context, the materialization of the drawn objects on the altar becoming offerings and ancestral objects.
The poems of this work explore and expand the quasi-prayers that a generally non-religious poor family stumbles upon in everyday use, such as “Lord, let this day be done.” Bound in leather, the prayer book is lent a material permanence often withheld from poor families. The ending of each prayer is drawn by “Dreams be sweet,” an utterance that urges sleeping fantasies be sweet should the waking reality be bitter.
View the full book here.
Altar Detail. Beer, cigarette, orange, sleeping bag, dresser. 36” x 36” x 36”.
The Budweiser, Marlboro cigarette, and Halo orange each serve as offerings to the trailer: the open can of beer as chalice or goblet, the cigarette as incense held by the beer tab, and the orange as food offering.
At the same time, each of these objects are portrayed within the prayer book, or are perhaps materialized out of the book, emphasizing the presence of the trailer today as well as honoring the objects as significant (even necessary) to the space.
As opposed to a cloth covering the dresser that serves as the altar, a sleeping bag is draped over it. In addition to having personal significance, sleeping bags have particular class-specific associations as accessible, portable, and effective means of staying warm and allowing rest.
