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This work was made in response to a performance relic: a metal bowl that was used in Linda Montano’s piece, Dad Art. In her performance, Montano used this bowl to contain fire and ash. I responded to her work by using the same metal bowl to freeze water which created a womb-like shape of ice. I held the ice in my arms and amplified the rhythmic sounds of water as it melted back into the same metal bowl from which it was shaped.
I held ice until I inflicted frostbite upon myself and then held it longer still.
Later, parts of the ice began to melt, breaking and falling to the ground in fragments. People around me began to pick up the shards of ice and hold them in their hands together with strangers. Several groups of two people started to pick up the ice and cup their four hands around it together; experiencing the severe and painful cold, but holding it in communion experiencing the shared endeavor in solidarity with me. Empathy waiting for it to melt.
Eventually, a person from the crowd took the ice out of my hands. She took it upon herself to relieve my duress and instead, she held the remaining ice herself until it transformed.
Photos & video: Liina Raud
Intervention performance: Amy Whittaker
Sound composition: Amy Whitaker
At No Nation Art Space
2020
