Occupation
An invitation to inhabit the art.
Occupation: Coax, Coddle & Caress was an interactive performance/solo exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center, presented in November 2022. The exhibition featured works from the Braille Series activated by models who invited patrons to touch, wear, and interact with the work.
Lines of Communication are a pair of hand-sewn leather masks with Love poems transcribed into braille beaded onto their surfaces. Audience members who don the masks are invited to read the braille on each other's faces. The Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz was my first love as a child.
Lines of Communication - Red Masque: Leather, glass beads.
Lines of Communication - Grey Masque: Leather, glass beads.
Lines of Communication - A performance exchange. Participants are reading braille transcriptions of love poems.
Please, DO touch the art!
Audience members were able to adopt, embrace & animate Hug and move the artwork, like a companion, throughout the gallery space for the duration of the exhibition.
Hug, an interactive performance references the surrogate lover, a comforting imaginary friend, a punching bag, a carcass, a teddy bear for adults.
Detail: reading braille excerpt from the Kama Sutra transcribed onto Hug's fur surface.
Hug, is composed of synthetic fur, polyester fiberfill, glass beads, and sisal rope.
Learning to touch.
Hush invited audience members to interact with performers wearing the gloves who would touch each other through the artwork. Braille text is beaded onto glove liner fingertips. The text reads, “I remember how warm your skin used to be.” Hush was created during the height of the pandemic when even touching a loved one could mean death. The phrase is also meant to remind the wearer of the animal whose fur was used to make the original gloves.
Hush, an interactive performance
Detail Views: performers interacting with each other through Hush