video

Ode to Persephone

color & sound RT 3:00 2006

:: View 'Ode to Persephone & Snow Days'
:: View the installation Love, Life-Support and the Pursuit of Marriage

video will open in a separate window

‘Ode to Persephone & Snow Days’ is inspired by a Greek fertility myth and the role of negotiation in which women are considered the property of husbands and parents, and marriage itself is treated as a financial transaction between families. When Persephone is abducted by the King of the Underworld, her mother Demeter refuses to let anything grow, causing winter. Persephone’s story is the myth of budding and dying of nature. Since her fate causes the very existence of winter, she is enveloped in the snow, plays in the snow, and eventually marries the snow (represented by placing garlands on the snow). What intrigued me most about Persephone’s story is how fertility and frigidity are interconnected and how through her abduction and marriage—over which she had little control—Persephone was able to make it snow.

--------------------------------------------------------
:: back to list of videos