Amanda Maciel Antunes: I’ve Got To Tell You Something Now

About

I’ve Got To Tell You Something Now, which consists of a film, an object, and an artist book, functions as a portrait of an action of resistance, and an appeal to the intention of memory and stillness. The artist spent 365 days walking up and down a mountain with a piece of cloth, an audio recorder, a cell phone, a GoPro, sewing thread, and a needle. The journey began on the first day of the Covid-19 mandated lockdown in Los Angeles. The text was written during the hike and hand-stitched upon reaching the summit each day. The trail leads to the oldest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, and its elevation is one of the highest reached in the least amount of geographic time. Persisting in this daily action was a transformative mental and physical exercise of exploring the geographies of personal and ancestral territories.  

Resembling the daily journey, the 90-foot scroll of fabric will be displayed in the window lobby area of the museum and fabric will be suspended in several parts of the lobby forming waves resembling the hills of the mountains culminating in an area where a monitor will display the filmed journey.  

The final object created for the project is a handstitched and bound artist book, an assemblage of collected images and text encouraging readers to rethink the nature of our memories during traumatic experiences. It is the exploration of a particular time and place. It is a story beginning with loss and moving, finally, to acceptance. 

The meditative nature of the techniques allows the artist to catalogue and reflect on her memories as she creates. The pauses in many of her works provide metaphorical spaces in which viewers can place their own memories for personal observation and reflection.