WEBVTT 00:00:07.388 --> 00:00:12.345 [Janine Antoni: Milagros] 00:00:25.691 --> 00:00:28.115 You know, a lot of people don't know 00:00:28.804 --> 00:00:31.146 what the coccyx looks like, 00:00:31.146 --> 00:00:34.502 but really, it's the site of our severed tail. 00:00:37.779 --> 00:00:42.977 I love the cup of the sacrum and the cup of the hand, 00:00:42.977 --> 00:00:45.218 as if they're about to shake hands. 00:00:46.913 --> 00:00:50.251 So this is a very unusual--and impossible-- 00:00:50.251 --> 00:00:53.650 coming together of two body parts. 00:00:55.018 --> 00:00:58.789 The whole idea around this work was really about grafting. 00:01:00.882 --> 00:01:03.189 When you graft one plant to another, 00:01:03.189 --> 00:01:05.144 then they fuse together. 00:01:09.743 --> 00:01:12.144 For years, I've been fascinated with 00:01:12.144 --> 00:01:13.915 these things called 'milagros'. 00:01:14.175 --> 00:01:16.746 They're found in Portugal, 00:01:16.746 --> 00:01:19.113 in Spain, in Mexico, 00:01:19.113 --> 00:01:20.544 and in Brazil. 00:01:20.722 --> 00:01:22.912 The ones that people are most familiar with are 00:01:22.912 --> 00:01:25.747 these small medallions that are shaped like 00:01:25.747 --> 00:01:27.484 an arm, or a leg, 00:01:27.484 --> 00:01:28.913 or a heart. 00:01:28.913 --> 00:01:32.443 But they also have them in three dimensions. 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:34.863 The way they're used is that 00:01:34.863 --> 00:01:36.420 if you have an ailment-- 00:01:36.420 --> 00:01:37.682 if you have a problem with your foot-- 00:01:37.682 --> 00:01:39.544 you would go and buy one of these, 00:01:39.544 --> 00:01:41.150 and you'd take it to the church. 00:01:41.150 --> 00:01:43.031 They hang them on the ceilings of the church, 00:01:43.031 --> 00:01:46.434 so the entire ceiling is filled with body parts. 00:01:48.090 --> 00:01:51.576 I was very inspired by these more simple milagros 00:01:51.576 --> 00:01:53.418 that are more generalized. 00:01:53.851 --> 00:01:57.419 In a way, that foot becomes anyone's foot. 00:02:01.262 --> 00:02:05.421 I started with very specific pairings that I was interested in, 00:02:05.421 --> 00:02:07.113 and then I took those gestures 00:02:07.113 --> 00:02:09.620 and I made milagros out of them. 00:02:19.242 --> 00:02:21.313 I mean, all the pieces have been sanded 00:02:21.313 --> 00:02:23.175 for days and days and days. 00:02:26.033 --> 00:02:29.945 They feel like they've been weathered 00:02:30.445 --> 00:02:33.388 by something that seems familiar, 00:02:33.388 --> 00:02:35.820 like a piece of sea glass in the ocean. 00:02:36.189 --> 00:02:39.189 The fact that you feel that this thing has a history, 00:02:39.189 --> 00:02:40.913 I think that's important. 00:02:42.429 --> 00:02:45.220 You know, here I am, cutting the body up into parts, 00:02:45.220 --> 00:02:47.942 and not thinking about the importance of the sever. 00:02:48.311 --> 00:02:51.651 And so to acknowledge that sever was, I think, 00:02:51.651 --> 00:02:53.621 crucial to whole installation. 00:02:53.621 --> 00:02:54.796 ['Within' -- Janine Antoni] 00:02:54.796 --> 00:02:57.545 And so, the first thing that you witness 00:02:57.545 --> 00:02:58.545 when you come into the space 00:02:58.545 --> 00:02:59.587 is a sever-- 00:02:59.587 --> 00:03:02.111 and a very dramatic sever-- 00:03:02.111 --> 00:03:05.279 and this ascension into the ceiling. 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.989 Initially, I wanted to hang the roots from the ceiling, 00:03:13.989 --> 00:03:16.114 and hang the milagros from them. 00:03:17.784 --> 00:03:21.855 This trunk is kind of grafted to the building itself, 00:03:21.855 --> 00:03:25.039 and then when the trunk goes through the ceiling, 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:28.532 it's grafted to a table on the second floor 00:03:28.532 --> 00:03:30.072 with milagros. 00:03:40.762 --> 00:03:42.841 When I was a little girl, 00:03:43.165 --> 00:03:44.441 I had an aunt-- 00:03:44.441 --> 00:03:45.903 her name was Auntie Eileen. 00:03:45.903 --> 00:03:48.797 She came over every Tuesday to have tea-- 00:03:48.797 --> 00:03:49.933 she was English. 00:03:49.933 --> 00:03:52.472 And, I would sit and have tea with her, 00:03:52.472 --> 00:03:56.502 and she would teach me how to drink tea like a lady. 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:59.395 Part of that was learning to cross my legs. 00:04:00.605 --> 00:04:03.985 I thought it was funny to take the bone from one leg 00:04:03.985 --> 00:04:07.309 and cross it with the skin of the other leg. 00:04:07.969 --> 00:04:11.184 I sunk that bone right into the thigh 00:04:11.595 --> 00:04:14.905 so that they are really fused together. 00:04:15.513 --> 00:04:17.673 So in the piece, there's really no chance 00:04:17.673 --> 00:04:20.474 of uncrossing my legs. 00:04:25.597 --> 00:04:27.257 When you stand in front of the object, 00:04:27.257 --> 00:04:31.103 I want you to imagine how it's been made. 00:04:31.103 --> 00:04:32.673 And the reality is that 00:04:32.673 --> 00:04:35.166 we are in contact with a lot of objects 00:04:35.166 --> 00:04:37.400 and we have no idea how they are made. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.524 Making any of my work is a form of healing-- 00:04:43.223 --> 00:04:47.967 that, in making, I can somehow locate myself 00:04:47.967 --> 00:04:51.106 in relationship to others 00:04:51.106 --> 00:04:52.832 and my environment. 00:04:53.348 --> 00:04:55.472 If somebody comes along 00:04:55.472 --> 00:04:57.627 and my work resonates for them, 00:04:58.187 --> 00:05:00.596 that's when I feel less alone-- 00:05:00.596 --> 00:05:05.074 that I'm not as strange as I feel. [LAUGHS]