Talk
Talk: Taryn Simon and Frances Morris in Conversation
26 Apr 2018
The Anatomy Lecture Theatre
London, United Kingdom
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An Ecuadorian mourner named Hugo Anibal Gonzalez Jimenez, wearing sunglasses and playing accordion in the concrete structures erected as part of Taryn Simon's 'An Occupation of Loss'. The piece was performed at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2016. Photograph: Taryn Simon
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Two Venezuelan mourners, Ana Luisa Montiel De Fernandez and Marisol Rosalia Montiel Fernandez, wearing long patterned head coverings in the concrete structures erected as part of Taryn Simon's An Occupation of Loss. The piece was performed at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2016.
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Albanian mourner inside a concrete structure as part of Taryn Simon's An Occupation of Loss, performed at Park Avenue Armory in New York, 2016. Photograph: Taryn Simon
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Two Azerbaijani mourners in the concrete structures erected as part of Taryn Simon's An Occupation of Loss performed at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2016.
Exhibition
An Occupation of Loss
17 Apr 2018 – 28 Apr 2018
Event times
Monday – Thursday:
18:00, 19:00, 20:00, 21:00, 22:00
Friday – Saturday:
17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00, 21:00, 22:00
No performances on Sundays.
Performance duration: 50 minutes.
Cost of entry
£20/15
Corner of Islington Green, Essex Road
Address
- Essex Road
- London
England - N1 8DU
- United Kingdom
Event map
A performance on the site of a half-built, subterranean concrete well. Bringing together professional mourners, the piece immerses viewers in laments, rituals and other expressions of loss.
About
Within a monumental setting, Taryn Simon’s An Occupation of Loss combines performance, sound, and architecture to consider the anatomy of grief and the intricate systems we use to manage the abstract certainty of death.
Each night, professional mourners simultaneously broadcast their lamentations, enacting rituals of grief. Their sonic mourning is performed in recitations that include northern Albanian laments, which seek to excavate “uncried words”; Venezuelan laments, which safeguard the soul’s passage to the Milky Way; Greek Epirotic laments, which bind the story of a life with its afterlife; and Yezidi laments, which map a topography of displacement and exile.
