How do our bodies hold onto and release grief and memories?
Cappatoi (To wrap around the body) is a site specific, to-scale drawing of my late-grandmother’s cappatoi (Molisan dialect for housecoat), created with pastels directly on the front-facing window of Whippersnapper Gallery. On the final day of the exhibition, I will wash the drawing away with water and rags.
The drawing references a cherished housecoat that still holds my grandmother’s smell.
Recalling the physical absence and spiritual presence of my grandmother’s body, the housecoat is a relic of mortality. The public re-creation, display, and erasure of this precious and banal object is an act of memorialization.