What is the labor of decay within the body? The displacement of flesh as mud and dirt. Displaying the shame of struggle. One trap leads to another. The body as house crumbles at it’s joints. Your weight’s worth in clay. The weight of the enduring. A loss of functioning provides evidence of lacking order. The more you push the more it crumbles.
Degeneration was a 3 hour-long performance and post-performance installation work in which Autumn Hays was encased in her body’s weight in clay and put on display in the window case at Defibrillator performance space. The second shop window contained a crime scene like outline of Autumn’s body in soil along with a an array of aging pharmaceutical equipment. As her body moved and gravity pulled down on the clay it crumbled and peeled off her body and the weight of it’s immense pressure slowly dissipated as the audience watched the slow and tedious progression of the struggle with the clay. Once the clay was shed Autumn began meticulously distributing the weight of the clay to the windows covering it in a skin and blocking the view through the window. This piece is in dialogue with the display of living with a disability and working through two stages of confinement one corporeal and the other social.
