Frozen Words Hot Air (2017)

Frozen Words compares the alchemical history and quality of glass, as well as its fragility and sonic qualities, to a particular passage in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel. In the novel, the protagonist Pantagruel is sailing through a frozen sea when suddenly the sounds of war, frozen in mid-air during the previous winter, begin to explode around him and his crew. In the performance Frozen Words Hot Air Rabelais is the subtext, but the words of Donald Trump are the bombastic, explosive focus of the event.

The performance balances the poetic and the political, the imaginary and the actual, making equal references to both Rabelais’ grotesque hero and President Donald J. Trump. This was the first in a series of works that includes Seven Frozen Words at the Agnes Varis Art Center and Frozen Words at Local Project Art Space.