MOURNING THE UNGRIEVABLE | 2020 - ongoing
In her book Precarious Life, Judith Butler argues that grievability in human societies is based upon a framework which allows for some lives to be grieved, while others are deemed ‘lose-able’; the defining factors of this unconscious allocation being the irreplaceability of the deceased, the unpredictable emotional effects of the loss, and the understanding of the loss through bodily empathy. So how does one interact with the (lost) lives that do not fit into this criteria? Animal bones are one of the most frequent objects washed ashore by the river near my home, and fall into the category of ‘unpermissible subject for human grief’ due to their anonymity and non-human nature. With Butler’s theory in mind, I’ve begun to explore a variety of grieving rituals with these bones with the goal of testing this established framework. So far, this has involved performing burials for the bones and creating small memorials atop their resting place, along with sculpting accurate re-creations of the bones as an experiment in observation and presence.
Some questions I’ve considered: What does the use of funerary/memorialization rituals here imply in terms of the human/animal divide? Is this process about paying respects to the lost lives, regardless of grievability, or is this action merely a coping mechanism for my own discomfort with mortality? Most importantly, can human empathy surpass established boundaries when guided by conscious intention?
