what haunts…
2002-2009
Inspired by my own family secrets, what haunts… is an interactive installation that explores the secrets we keep and reveal. Consisting of a wall papered with secrets and a spare wooden structure with a muslin curtain, the installation engages viewer response and participation through reading and contributing – in anonymity – their own, often intimate, secrets.
This project was installed in more than twenty venues, including a lounge, a church, two colleges, a private high school, New Haven Free Library, New Haven, CT, and at Dimock Community Health Center (in conjunction with Pulse: Art & Healing, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston), Roxbury, MA. Secrets were engraved on to memorial plaques for installation in various settings. The secrets were also remembered and released through performance. In a culminating durational act, I read the secrets to the ocean.
A limited edition portfolio of prints related to this project is available.
This project is supported by an artist residency at Caldera, Sisters, Oregon, and a grant from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation’s Artist’s Resource Trust.