Midwest Nice Art - “I can’t get to the poem of this”
This is a still from my video Return. It’s currently on view at Midwest Nice Art. Thank you to juror Angela Zonunpari for including my piece.
Here is the story of Return:
I made Return after the intense experience of photographing my placenta, watching blood ooze from the organ that had connected my son to my body and sustained him through my pregnancy. My doula told me to take it home, that it was mine. On the intake form, under reason for taking it, I wrote "make art." It sat in my freezer for three years. When I finally brought it out to photograph, it was perfect.
I wanted to bury it, but didn't want to draw the neighborhood coyotes to our home. Instead, I filmed liquid absorbing into soil as a symbolic burial and return to the earth. Animals eat their placentas so predators won't find their young. The impulse to bury is an impulse to protect.
The soundtrack layers my son breastfeeding, his heartbeat in utero, water, and the ambient sounds of the moment I recorded.