Monument to an Origin story, 2018

HD Digital Video, 17:33 run-time

Video documents public performance during the July 4, 2018 “We the People Liberty Parade” in Downtown Boise. The performance, rooted in my family’s historic involvement in mining and union organizing, was developed through conversation with my family about their contemporary relationship to this history compared to how this history is formally addressed by the state of Idaho and a public monument along the parade route. My immediate family filmed the performance, after which I was interviewed by local news. The video concludes with the news coverage that ran and was archived and instead of my interview.

When installed, video audio plays aloud and viewers are invited to sit on sculpture plinths and listen to a separate track on headphones featuring a recorded conversation with my grandma about her relationship to and understanding of this history.