Your Ancestors were Freaks Too

 

Performance / Exhibition / Artist Talk
presented by Division of Labour

6 June, 2 – 8 PM, c/o The Florence Trust
Holy Trinity Church, Cloudesley Square Angel, London N1 0HN

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In London, I will use a British Army helmet from the 1975 Northern Ireland conflict as a mold to press out bowls using local clay. I will leave them on the gallery floor and return home. The resulting bowl is both objects at once. It can no longer protect a head, but it can hold food.

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Our languages, spaces, and daily habits were shaped by people who fought, erred, and died. They were not saints. While the current war in Europe demands clear, heroic narratives, our lived reality remains tangled in this complicated past. In Lithuania, we say: “Ne šventieji puodus lipdo” (It’s not saints who mold the pots). In Britain, you say: “Nobody’s hands are clean.”

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I am going to London empty-handed; the materials there know more than I do. We are all the unfinished ritual of our ancestors. None of us started with a clean slate.