Weight of My Eight-Year-Old Self, 2014
Performance with stone, grinder, scale, safety goggle, gloves, mask
By grinding the stone from its original weight to match the weight of my eight-year-old-self, I bring physicality to the mutable nature of human memory, instilling an inanimate and meaningless object with meaning so as give the act of recollection a tangible element. I undergo a physical effort in order to rediscover one factual aspect of my past – a process far more grueling than, say, picking up a photograph - and access my memories through the bodily sensation of carrying the allegorical weight of that time on my stomach.
Grinding and cutting the stone with a grinder requires proper safety equiptments and muscle strength .
After the third cut, the stone becomes the weight of my eight-year-old self (18kg = 40lb).
Embodying the weight of my eight-year-old self.