Sketchbook

Unfinished Work

I recently noticed that I have a tendency to think about the performance space and environment before the action of the performance itself. This piece is a classic example of that. One day, I was driving down Allens Ave, and was hit by the urge to do a performance in this location; the parking lot at the Wild Zebra had a perfect view of the asphalt plant next door. It seemed too good to be true. How is it that the intersection of sexwork and blue collar, industrial labor was concentrated right here on this random Providence road? I had already been experimenting with building pools on a smaller scale, and I knew I wanted to build some sort of stage to perform in.

While building my metal box, I concluded that I’d perform another type of cleansing action (I had previously done this in Bathing Textron). I was hoping to film this performance on location, but, many technical difficulties later, I ended up having to shoot off-site. The result ended up being this odd collaging of different spaces with a performance that didn’t aid in weaving these locations together. I’ve been in this situation plenty of times, when all your thoughts and efforts don’t end up culminating into the finale you were expecting. I don’t find it helpful to force a piece to completion. If it’s an idea I can’t seem to shake, I usually see granules of these past failures reincarnated into new work down the line.