The Body with Organs
PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATION | 25 MIN | 2018
The Body with Organs is a performance piece that explore how state authority is exerted over individuals by the U.S. political system. The installation consists of a box filled with soil mixed with fragments of official state documents, policies, sanctions and forms that regulate the body and mark it with meaning. In the performance, the participants were invited to look through and read the language on the documents and then contribute any piece to a narrative that would be read from the lit platform, while listening to an audio piece. Once they decided on what piece to contribute, they would place it anywhere on the platform and sign their name on the paper. The performance concluded with a reading of the disjointed pieces of policy, which propelled the performer’s bodies into movement.
The video preserves moments of the performance. Fragments of official state documents, policies, sanctions and forms are uncovered through careful excavation. The reductive language of these forms often dictate where bodies are allowed to travel, where bodies are detained, the value assigned to these bodies, and if a body is worthy of belonging at home and with family. Forms once scattered in the sand are moved and reconfigured, suddenly replaced with moving bodies.
Creators of this piece convey their lived experiences dealing with these highly oppressive systems as a previous ward of the state placed in institutions for ‘extremely troubled youth’ and as an immigrant and former DACA recipient.
