A Short Play for Changing Tides
performed three times in a loop
Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. 45 minute duration, June 29th 2017 San Diego, CA. Documentation by Amy Reid
In 1898 Polish scientist Dr. Maire Curie discovered radium. Through her research and developments of Xray technologies and experiments with radium, Curie saved countless lives. Within her lifetime she was awarded 2 noble prizes, but was also subject to many constructed set backs.
In 'A Short Play for Changing Tides' we find aesthetics of radium that are mixed with rave and protest; a layering of metaphors found through subversions of hierarchal forms of power.
Here we find Goddess Curie in her laboratory along with her unseen but present assistants. Radiation becomes a metaphor which communicates the penetrative abilities of what Bell Hooks has coined the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. In the background we see Jennifer Steinkamp's seven channel synchronized projection Entitled Madame Curie, 2011. Forty different plants mentioned in Curie's biography written by her daughter were digitally rendered for the projection including chestnut blooms, marsh marigolds, may flower, and hop plants.