Unnamed Poem in Mourning

Video, performance, auto-fictive ekphrastic poetry, 12’05’’

“She died, voluntarily. A night in early summer, the year we were 21 years old, she left the house forever and immersed herself in water…”

“Death. A piece of bad meat that the butcher threw into the trash. I am a stray dog. I approached it. There are flies all over it. I sniffed it. I breathed it in strongly. Then jerked my head. I started to go away with my muzzle close to the ground…but I trotted back, wagging my tail. I sniffed it again. Finally, I licked it, I sank in my teeth. All the flies lifted into the air.”

This work features me responding to the audio of myself performing my auto-fictional poem. It is a metaphysical piece that confronts my own depression following my good friend’s suicide, rendered as the death of my alter ego.

The words in the piece are infused with imagery, they define a surreal, mystic landscape; I embody multiple personas moving through it, using my voice to reenact their movements. In my performance and videography, I further complicate the theatrical tensions by being the speaker and the silent listener at once. However, behind this scenography, is another “me”—the clear-minded writer, director, and videographer. These artistic devices are my strongest effort in extending into and grasping the cherished beings in my memory.