Water Ritual, Latvia

Nevainīgs: Latvian for "Innocent"

This work began during an Artist Residency at the Interdisciplinary Art Group SERDE, Aizpute, Latvia, September, 2019.

I am working on constructing a ritual in the spirit of the mikvah and sacred Jewish customs of washing. I wash the building with moving light, its strong white walls that stand as witness, although its former identity and meaning are not evident. The water reinvigorates and honors the memory of the neglected mikvah, now in ruins, and those who passed through its walls to wash and purify themselves and who left this world suddenly, violently, under force, in ways that awaken feelings of guilt and innocence, unresolved.

Projected image of water on exterior of former synagogue, at night.

My exploring led me to a new friend, Varis, and to learn of his search for evidence. We hiked through the fields and stumbled through woods three kilometers from town, as part of his ongoing quest to identify the exact site of the largest shooting of the town's Jewish inhabitants on Monday, October 27, 1941. On the walk, he pondered difficult questions, about what he might have done if he had lived at that time, and about the value in looking for forgotten and obliterated truths, regardless of who might care to know. He continues to search for physical traces.

Water Ritual, Latvia, 2019

Nevainīgs: Latvian for "Innocent"

Nevainība: Latvian for "Innocence"