(2012) mask created for Mother for you I made this performance.
I only have a few images of my mother taken within the last ten years. When I imagined creating a mask of my mother I found myself feeling lucky to have this image as my only and best photo. I have the color original. In a progression of performative ideas, I xeroxed the color into only black and white. My first use of the xerox’d photo of my mother was for a Ten Tiny performance, for this performance I made a dress out of 80 copies of my mother’s face.
For this mother mask, I gave myself the task of finding a store bought mask that had the same expression as my mother in this photo. Taking multiple copies I began to recreate my mother’s face overlaid on the preexisting mask (of Hillary Clinton).
My mother has a healthy fear of the government that is amplified by her imbalance. I thought it was a poetic gesture with a mother’s son portraying her face skin deep over Hillary, walking the streets searching for the last few ferries among the cement of the big city.
Photo Anthony Rigano
Photo Tim Summers