DIG: A Hole To Put Your Grief In, 2021

5 slides // Mandel Institute Fellowship Application 2023

Description

8 day durational performance with accompanying in situ artworks and event series

First iteration: August 14 -21, 2021, Shalom Institute, Malibu CA

Supported by the AJU’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, DIG was a week-long performance of digging a large-scale hole in the ground, around which other artists utilized the site as a container for new works relating to grief and mourning, after over a year of great collective loss. The weeklong duration contains this symbolic period of mourning or ‘shiva’, at the end of which, on the second Saturday, we filled the hole with water and performed a ritual cleansing or ‘mikveh’, refilled the hole with its original dirt, and planted native seeds to complete the cycle for renewal.

The weeklong series of events was punctuated with an opening ceremony by Alan Salazar, a local Chumash tribal leader, and storyteller, and mid-week with a havdalah service led by Cantor Chayim Frenkel from Kehilat Israel Temple. Artists Adrienne Adar, Dorit Cypis, Faye Driscoll, Sonia Guinansca, Asher Hartman, Michele Jaquis, and, hannah rubin all presented new work on site. The Shalom Institute campus was devastated by the Woolsey Fire of 2018. The leaders and community from SI welcomed DIG as part of their grief process over the loss and sacred transition taking place on their land. digahole.live

For more information including video documentation and images see project webpage here.