60 Pounds of Pressure

"60 Pounds of Pressure,” a thirty-minute durational performance, was inspired by the story of a young mother and nurse in Georgia who was found dead in her home from COVID-19, with her four-year-old daughter sitting by her side. Upon learning the news, I experienced such an enormous amount of grief and anxiety that I lost my breath. I did not know this woman or her child, but as a single mother of two children, I immediately began to imagine what would happen if I were to become ill and the risk to my children. In an effort to further engage with this empathetic grief, I had 60 pounds of bricks on my chest, equivalent to the individual weight of my children, a gesture to equalize the internal pressure with an external force.