The Unbaptism

The Unbaptism, 2020

Archival inkjet print of site-specific performance and video

Featured in The Corning Museum of Glass’ New Glass Review 41, September 2020

"To unbaptize the earth is to unmark it, that is, to make it disappear from the binary structures that normally mark it as feminine, primitive, or undeveloped in a pejorative sense." (Ana Mendieta)

A vessel of blown glass is egg-shaped, with a void impression where several fingers may slip inside. There is a round opening on one end for liquid to be poured in and out from. One holds the vessel from the void impression. The audience is comprised of three local men in camping chairs feeding seagulls stale bread. This performance is a dialogue with Mendieta’s concept of the unbaptism. The performance unmarks the self and land through ritual pouring of river water, while seated on a Jet Ski belonging to a stranger on the beach.

From Venetian curator Francesca Giubilei: “Unbaptism is a ritual performance connecting the artist’s body with two alchemical materials, glass and salt…The egg sculpture becomes a means by which the artist’s saline body restores contact with another primordial element, water, whose flow connects all the states and elements of matter.”