Punishment’s Place, 2018
Punishment’s Place engaged the greek mythological origins of punitive logic in a sculptural tableau of Prometheus Bound. Inspired by the 2017 toppling of bronze confederate soldier statues in Durham North Carolina, “Punishment’s Place” dramatizes the act of tearing something down as both painful and a moment for renewed energy. Performed by Kathleen Keogh, Peter Tomka and Oscar Alvarez
Since the election of 2016, I have been thinking about the ways in which people make each other into effigies of the structural forces they are unable to affect. We can’t punish the government and even if we could, a dead tyrant always escapes too soon. The urge to punish has to go somewhere we can see it hurt. We want satisfaction.
The centerpiece of Punishment’s Place is a sculptural tableaux of Prometheus Bound consisting of an eagle, snake, and Prometheus statue. These were fabricated, broken, repaired, and reengineered over the course of a year while working with performance artists Peter Tomka, Kathleen Keough, and Oscar Alvarez. Importantly, the Prometheus myth of eternal punishment was a starting place for our exchanges about our personal experiences with retribution.