Insulting words in the singing of birds
Insulting words in the singing of birds, 2022. 32.5 x 35.5 x 18.5 cm. Stoneware, audioscape, ceramic stain, human hair, sausage casing, wood.
Commissioned by Harbourfront Centre for the CoMotion Festival exhibition, “Not Born Yesterday, Not Gone Tomorrow,” at Harbourfont Centre in Toronto until October, 2022.
To be mad is to be erased.
To be mad is to have your words taken from your mouth before you can think them.
To be mad is to have your vision of yourself kidnapped and replaced with the visions researchers, doctors, and philanthropists have of you. Also, those of journalists, horror film writers, and art collectors; of social workers, police officers, nurses, politicians, and teachers.
Any word or vision anyone has of you is more authoritative than your own.
To be mad is to be murdered by the Nazi Aktion T-4 programme and your name erased, while your artwork survives under the name of the psychiatrist who helped himself to it.
To be mad is to, despite all this, sing your vision into fire-hardened clay, knowing that even if buried it can survive millenia. To be mad is to sing.
Dedicated to the artists of the Prinzhorn Collection