OPEN CASKET IX

2020

OPEN CASKET IX

In support of Black lives and Black artists, we are sharing Indira Allegra’s installation, Open Casket IX. Allegra developed this work during her residency at Mills College for the 2018 Art+Process+Ideas exhibition at MCAM.

Open Casket IX (Detail) from Indira Allegra on Vimeo.

Open Casket IX is a memorial for people who have lost loved ones to police violence. Here, traditional materials of memorial like stone are used alongside video and vocal compositions. Open Casket IX explores ways in which grief is non-linear without a clear pathway to an end—exerting its force on us from every direction.

Open Casket IX uses the weave structure of crepe, a textile commonly used to line the interior of caskets, as a starting point to create a new kind of memorial—one which explores the irregular, cyclical nature of grieving for those impacted by police violence. Allegra gathers online expressions of mourning to create a digital fabric that speaks, for an installation that meditates on the role of digital media in the grieving process and the tension between immaterial and material realities when coping with death.

 

Learn more about Indira Allegra’s work or follow her on instagram @indiraallegra to support her work.