Floods, openings, miracles.
On the day of the opening, the river flooded.
Slowly but with rigor, water corroded the banks, surging from directions unseen. Dandelions went under first. Then the walking path made of wood chips. Then the neighbor’s backyard. I stood on the bridge and watched the river lap tree rungs. Higher, higher. Choking the leaves.
It’s been two weeks since the flood and still the river holds, bloated beyond its green seams.
As the river, so am I, tumid from joy and from miracle.
I am integrating the wonder of opening Destruction Is and Is Not Forever, metabolizing unspeakable things.
On Friday night, I held a private ceremony in the exhibition hall. Thirty people arrived from all over the world joined me in the space, the walls filled with my artworks. I led a traditional Kabbalat Shabbat prayer service in the shul—the first time anything of the sort has happened in the village since 1941.
The hall itself is gigantic; acoustics made for song. The synagogue built for three hundred. And we were thirty souls. Our smallness in the room was so tangible that I winced. With grandeur, the architecture continually pronounced the periphery of annihilation. Twice I had to adjust my position. Step backwards and move closer to sound.
When the service ended, I turned around and found all of the people in my life who love me. Friends who have witnessed the depths of this work and know, so intimately, the cost.
And I wept bitterly for all that has been stolen—all that cannot ever be returned, redeemed, or made right—past and present seize. And then we sang, sang unplanned songs in our womb of white. It was raucous and verdant and four angels appeared, one shimmering at each window. I saw the vision and had no strength left in my body. Unspeakable things.
At the center of this project lies the tension between revelation and concealment. Not everything for everyone. A relief, really.
In a radio interview, I was asked, yet again, about healing. To my surprise, my curator stepped in. He leaned into the microphone: “The artist does not believe in healing,” he offered. A slight grin curtained my lips. I licked their edges in satisfaction.
I have done what I came here to do.
R E A D I N G S
Love by Tina Chang
Dearth-light by Saretta Morgan
The Mean Well (essay) by Melanie Jame Wolf
Resistance (essay) by Chris Kraus
H A P P E N I N G S
As part of the closing for “Destruction Is and Is Not Forever,” in July, there will be two events held in the gallery.
On July 6th at 14:00h, I will perform the poems on display in tandem with their Latvian translator, Ieva Lakute.
On July 13th at 14:00h, I will give an artist talk. The lecture will be interpreted live into Latvian.
I have a new interview out with In geveb: a Journal of Yiddish Studies. You can click the image below to read the full interview:
Here is the radio interview. It is (almost) entirely in Latvian, but sharing nonetheless.
