Renewal

Left -  Paty Lorena Solórzano

What does renewal mean? Can the ground become fertile again? Perhaps mycelia can grow, renew, connect what had become disconnected, toxic. Perhaps mushrooms can help us move towards healing. Perhaps mushrooms can grow. How can I connect with this land on an island I have never been to?  How can I breathe the air, tread the ground, and find my way? What would the island want for itself? What would it want to be named?  With a new name,  can we acknowledge the past but move towards justice?

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Right - Donna Costello

I used the word renewable to free associate words and ways of moving.  I was playing with the idea of cycles, thinking about the destructive cycles of Rikers today and the natural cycles of the island itself.  I worked with repetition in the frame, with images, gestures, walking patterns and sounds.   Tension I hold in the body comes through in the extreme lines and forms I make and I feel it is tapping into the tensions of inequality that is the jail and the need for this island to breathe new air.