London Biennale

Installation of wearable pieces emulating conditions common in the aging body, enlivened here by Anat Shinar, Megan Mayer, Non Edwards.

Photo: Isabel Fajardo.


Originally presented at the Weisman Art Museum, with curator Boris Oicherman.


The images enclosed are documentation from Work / Lifelong Choreographies, an installation and performance made while working in collaboration with the University of Minnesota School of Nursing and the Center for Aging and Care Innovation as an Art an Health resident at the Weisman Art Museum. The two masks are part of a collection of wearable sculptures intended to bring empathy and awareness to the physicality of advanced age and the people who care for these individuals - two interdependent and vulnerable communities who were similarly invisible before the pandemic, and who are still not appropriately seen since.

This exhibition, along with associated artistic research in the field, questioned a sense of community and human connection in senior assisted living and long-term care residences.The seven wearable pieces (Shuffle Gait Pants, Neuropathy Gloves and Balance Boots, Dementia Tent, Shoulder Impingement Shir t, Posterior Tilt Pants, Macular Degeneration Glasses) were designed and constructed in collaboration with designer Caroline Albers and ask audiences to briefly experience what it feels like to live in the body of an older person.The masks and sculptures were installed at ADA regulation height alongside common assistive devices (walker, wheelchair, shower chair) and accompanied by a cacophonous and disorienting sound score of familiar tunes that prompt dancing (ie. Hokey Pokey, Macarena, Ländler from the Sound of Music) as well as voices of seniors and staff from residential care.

The masks in this collection; the Dementia Tent and the Macular Degeneration Glasses stand in striking contrast with each other, as one is completely immersive, a full step away from one’s immediate life, the other, minimal, the slightest commitment try on.The Dementia Tent tightly surrounds the body in a tube of nostalgic and universally-recognized fabrics, hanging on the back of the head and neck, and leaving a small space for vision focused towards the floor or one’s lap.The wearer is fully limited, weighted down, hearing is dampened and touch buried, emulating the cocoon-like existance associated with the late stage of dementia. This garment, like many in the collection, is cumbersome; careful assistance from another is needed when trying it on.The Macular Degeneration Glasses place a darkened blind spot at the center of one’s available vision. From the outside the frames have a cartoonish appeal, they look to be a minor disturbance, though wearing them provides a distinct separation from ideal sight.

This work was made out of concern for the quality of care provided in profit driven residential care centers prominent in the U.S.. Office staff rarely shares space or physical connection with care staff or residents; understanding and empathy is difficult from such distances.The pandemic has significantly exacerbated the existing disfunction. Many residential care businesses will soon be bankrupt because CEOs make six figures. The threat to care workers is startling and the care is greatly suffering.These pieces were scheduled to be presented at several conferences and workshops in the coming months for a broad range of audiences though, of course, the events have been cancelled, participation in this work would be unsafe. At a time when our awareness of one another is largely limited to a visual realm, I hope the reasons why this work exists will still be felt.

Dementia tent and caregiver


Macular Degeneration Glasses


Macular Degentation Glasses, Dementia Tent, Nueropathy gloves (back)

Tent, glasses, with nuropathy gloves and shoulder impingement shirts

Demntia Tent II

Tent with Nueropathy gloves_boots,, shoulder impingement shirt, shuffle gait pants



(Photo above: Dementia Tent)




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www.mnartists.org/article/if-care-essential