An Occupation of Loss, an installation and performance piece designed by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with artist Taryn Simon, runs at New York's Park Avenue Armory from 13 to 25 September 2016.
Photo: Naho Kubota
World premiere at Park Avenue Armory, NY: "Each night at sundown, more than thirty professional mourners populate Simon’s sculptural installation, broadcasting their lamentations. The status of the lamenters as professionals—performing away and apart from their usual contexts—underscores the tension between authentic and staged emotion, spontaneity and script. Open during the daytime, visitors are invited to activate the sculpture of inverted wells with their own sounds. A subtle drone created from distilled recordings of the mourners’ rituals provides a white noise that echoes the evening performances.
The resulting work blends sculpture, sound, architecture, and performance in a monumental exploration of the boundaries of grief between living and dead, past and present, performer and viewer."