I had been thinking, in those days, a lot about bodies. At the end of his life, my father was very ill. I thought about the way my able body had allowed me to help his suddenly disabled body with its basic functions, just as he helped me with those same functions 40 years before. He could hardly swallow, in the end, and he had been so skinny, and I felt so close to him. Life can be so sad. I thought a lot, of course, about the terrible fact that my father’s body was now in the ground, that his body was an object, and that my body, too, would someday be only an object. The crisis of my father’s body made me think, in a new way, about the basic crisis of every human body: that we will always, in the end, be disabled, lose control. In many ways, this is what our bodies are: ever-present reminders of our essential lack of control.
- Sam Anderson, New York Times Magazine, May 11, 2022
Photos by Brian Fitzsimmons
Foreign Body (2022)
Foreign Body is an interactive, 8 foot head made from cardboard, brass, and electronics. Viewers are invited to activate the piece by wearing the mask and playing it like an oversized wearable instrument.
Ivester Gallery, Austin, TX.
