Amaryllis: The Consequence of (Re)collection, 2017, Video documentation (2 min 24 sec) of a performance, amaryllis flowers, projection, charcoal
This is the documentation of a performance from the Re: Art Show which took lace in the old Pfizer manufacturing plant in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn on October 21, 2017.
Last year Pfizer was in the trial stages for a drug to treat huntington’s disease. There are no drugs that treat HD so many people in that community had high hopes for this drug. Pfizer called the trial the Amaryllis study, and it was named for the official flower of HD advocacy, because Pizer knows how to market. In fact they spend 17 times more on marketing than they do on research and development. The trial ended in failure when the drug failed to improve movement, cognition, behavior or memory.
A row of red fresh amaryllis flowers is laid out in the corner of the the space. High above on the wall is a projection of my video Sullen Entropy (2016, Video, 6:11 minutes) where I appropriated text from a Facebook page for victims of Huntington’s disease, their families and caregivers sharing harrowing stories about living with HD. A photogrammetric process causes the text to decay and break apart.
Because of my failing short term memory I memorized the chemical structure of this drug at the moment that it disappeared into medical history destined to be forgotten.In the performance I walk into the space between the flowers and the projection and using charcoal sticks I draw the chemical structure to the best of my memory. This drug and my brain come into contact for the first and last time.