BACKGROUND
This year has been a major time for grieving . Pandemic deaths rise globally every day , alongside public police murders of unarmed Black people . Drone warfare kills endlessly to support global imperialism . ICE detention centers claim lives at the Mexican border . Natural resources are pillaged . Drug abuse deaths climb and mental illness pervades in social isolation . The spectre of death has appeared in our physical and mental health , domestically and abroad .
These experiences impact everyone and cannot be spoken of without the acknowledgement that our political structures have failed to protect us . Mainstream media teaches health and safety are private responsibilities . It treats powerless individuals as agents of their own demise . If we understand that individuals are not to blame , we must also understand individualism is not how we will heal .
While self-care is a necessary skill to develop , it cannot be the only tool in our toolkits . If care focuses only on our ability to help ourselves , who is left out ? I am primarily inspired by the four fundamental truths outlined in Bessel A . Van Der Kolk ’ s The Body Keeps the Score :
“( 1 ) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another . Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being ; ( 2 ) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences , helping us to define what we know , and finding common sense of meaning ; ( 3 ) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology , including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain , through such basic activities as breathing , moving , and touching ; and ( 4 ) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive .” ( pg . 38 )
My objective is to design care rituals that shift discourse from self to community . In a time of social isolation , I explore how we can fill the gap of community care while we are forced to manage grief in our own isolated spaces .
Which brings me to the question , why water ?
The vehicle I use in my exploration of Queer grief is our relation to water . I think that water has a similar metaphorical ambivalence as our emotional relation to grieving-- an ambivalence that is repeated over and over again in the survey responses and focus groups . Water is both a crucial element of maintaining life , and a terrifying and unforgiving element with the power to destroy ( kill , devastate , traumatize ). I am thinking about water ’ s relationship to tears . I am thinking about Queer bathhouses that were closed in major cities during the AIDS epidemic . I am thinking about the scene in Moonlight ( 2016 , dir . Barry Jenkins ) where Juan teaches Chiron how to swim and the infallible connection that moment has to the moments in his adulthood where he uses ice water to self-soothe . This is the power of healing with others . In speaking to grief and pain , I asked participants to engage in memories with water as well , to both engage in tangible memories and to participate in the co-creation of future water-based grief rituals .
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