'Sustenance (water, art, love)'
DVD, 2.5 minutes, sitting space, three books - Installation varies with context

Sustenance(water, art, love)is a short video made of three segments which represents an extended period of time during the infancy of my triplets. During this period in which time becomes abstract and internal, and interaction with
the social world is minimal, I spent much time reading to them, in an effort to provide nourishment for myself while
simultaneously nourishing them. I chose to read science fiction while breast feeding and art theory during play time-
allowing me to laugh at myself while feeling some authentic connections between infants and motherhood, futurism
and art.

In this iteration I read excerpts from 'The Scar' China Mieville (on liquidity), JG Ballard 'The Drowned World'
(one of the earlier texts on climate change (1962)) and Thiery De Duve 'Kant After Duchamp' (on art and love).
The documentary and the textual are augmented by decorative and illustrative elements, casting video as
a contemporary form of illuminated manuscript.

I chose the passage from the Scar for its reference to fluid and the edge of the water- trying to reflect their recent passage to land from living in fluid. (They were still making movements which echoed the state of living in liquid). Similarly, Ballards bookis about water and transitional/amphibious states, but chosen so I could (absurdly) try to tell them the story of our projections and worriesabout the ecological future (of their world) while recognizing in the infants a complete presentness. The excerpt from Kant After Duchamp makes the connection between art and love and helped me understand how much I want them to know the part of me that is an artist- and that however different they may be formally, motherhood and art are both things enacted through love, and impossible without it.

Currently I am working on Sustenance(Utopian Body), which picks up this project with the children at age 2.5