The second work I did as a self portrait was a performative “event” entitled “I Am/Am Not My things are Not Me”. This work looked at my identity in relation to my possesions, specifically those I lost just before attending Goldsmiths...
[below is taken from my artist statement]
Hurricane Irene hit the northeast coast of the United States in the last days of August, 2011 causing widespread destruction and more than 50 deaths. The storms hit my hometown in upstate New York with torrential rain fall and mass flooding. The worst of the damage hit my parents home just four days before my departure date for London, England to study at Goldsmiths College. In order to study abroad for a year, my wife and I packed up all our belongings and stored all but the 9 bags we were taking with us in the basement of my parent's house. Overnight, the area around their house began to flood and eventually poured into the basement reaching a water height of over three feet high, causing all the items on the floor to be submerged and ruined. For the three days following the flood, my family and some friends and I pulled out the damaged items, saved what we could and documented each ruined item in a list for insurance. We calculated that we had roughly lost about 70% of all our belongings. During the process of cataloguing, I was the person who carried out the wet boxes outside so that my wife and friends could go through them and write up what couldn't be saved. Although I had seen the piles created of our damaged items, since I wasn't the one writing up the list, I never had a full detailed picture of what was damaged beyond repair. I brought a copy of the list with me to London. I hadn't read the list until my reading of it as a performance at the Autumn art exhibit.
The days before we left the United States were supposed to be days of tying up final loose ends and saying goodbye to our family. Instead they were physically and emotionally extreme in a state of crisis. There was no time to process. The performance/event was part of the processing of the loss not only of the objects, but of the identity I've tied to them. How much of a reflection of who I am is held in the things I've surrounded myself with, in the objects I've bought, in the art I've made, in the art I've been given by friends?
[below is taken from my artist statement]
Hurricane Irene hit the northeast coast of the United States in the last days of August, 2011 causing widespread destruction and more than 50 deaths. The storms hit my hometown in upstate New York with torrential rain fall and mass flooding. The worst of the damage hit my parents home just four days before my departure date for London, England to study at Goldsmiths College. In order to study abroad for a year, my wife and I packed up all our belongings and stored all but the 9 bags we were taking with us in the basement of my parent's house. Overnight, the area around their house began to flood and eventually poured into the basement reaching a water height of over three feet high, causing all the items on the floor to be submerged and ruined. For the three days following the flood, my family and some friends and I pulled out the damaged items, saved what we could and documented each ruined item in a list for insurance. We calculated that we had roughly lost about 70% of all our belongings. During the process of cataloguing, I was the person who carried out the wet boxes outside so that my wife and friends could go through them and write up what couldn't be saved. Although I had seen the piles created of our damaged items, since I wasn't the one writing up the list, I never had a full detailed picture of what was damaged beyond repair. I brought a copy of the list with me to London. I hadn't read the list until my reading of it as a performance at the Autumn art exhibit.
The days before we left the United States were supposed to be days of tying up final loose ends and saying goodbye to our family. Instead they were physically and emotionally extreme in a state of crisis. There was no time to process. The performance/event was part of the processing of the loss not only of the objects, but of the identity I've tied to them. How much of a reflection of who I am is held in the things I've surrounded myself with, in the objects I've bought, in the art I've made, in the art I've been given by friends?
List Pages 5 & 6 (of 16)
I Am/Am Not My things are Not Me
A performative event by artist Stacey Ward Kelly
I am my things
I am not my things
I am more than my things
My things are not me
A performative event by artist Stacey Ward Kelly
I am my things
I am not my things
I am more than my things
My things are not me
By reading aloud all the items that were once a reflection of who I am but are now gone, I ask myself, I ask the viewer...
If I am my things, if I am not my things, if I am more than my things, if my things are not me...then
who am I now...
now that they are gone?
who am I now...
now that they are gone?
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