9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Janine Antoni: Milagros] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, a lot of people don't know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what the coccyx looks like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but really, it's the site of our severed tail. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I love the cup of the sacrum and the cup of the hand, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as if they're about to shake hands. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is a very unusual--and impossible-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 coming together of two body parts. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The whole idea around this work was really about grafting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When you graft one plant to another, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then they fuse together. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For years, I've been fascinated with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these things called 'milagros'. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They're found in Portugal, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Spain, in Mexico, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and in Brazil. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The ones that people are most familiar with are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these small medallions that are shaped like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 an arm, or a leg, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or a heart. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But they also have them in three dimensions. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The way they're used is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if you have an ailment-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if you have a problem with your foot-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you would go and buy one of these, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you'd take it to the church. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They hang them on the ceilings of the church, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so the entire ceiling is filled with body parts. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was very inspired by these more simple milagros 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that are more generalized. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In a way, that foot becomes anyone's foot. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I started with very specific pairings that I was interested in, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then I took those gestures 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I made milagros out of them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, all the pieces have been sanded 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for days and days and days. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They feel like they've been weathered 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by something that seems familiar, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like a piece of sea glass in the ocean. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The fact that you feel that this thing has a history, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think that's important. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, here I am, cutting the body up into parts, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and not thinking about the importance of the sever. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so to acknowledge that sever was, I think, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 crucial to whole installation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ['Within' -- Janine Antoni] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, the first thing that you witness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when you come into the space 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is a sever-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and a very dramatic sever-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and this ascension into the ceiling. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Initially, I wanted to hang the roots from the ceiling, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and hang the milagros them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This trunk is kind of grafted to the building itself, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then when the trunk goes through the ceiling, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's grafted to a table on the second floor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with milagros. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I was a little girl, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had an aunt-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her name was Auntie Eileen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She came over every Tuesday to have tea-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she was English. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, I would sit and have tea with her, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and she would teach me how to drink tea like a lady. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Part of that was learning how to cross my legs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I thought it was funny to take the bone from one leg 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and cross it with the skin of the other leg. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I sunk that bone right into the thigh 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that they are really fused together. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So in the piece, there's really no chance 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of uncrossing my legs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When you stand in front of the object, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I want you to imagine how it's been made. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the reality is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we are in contact with a lot of objects 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we have no idea how they are made. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Making any of my work is a form of healing-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, in making, I can somehow locate myself 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in relationship to others 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and my environment. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If somebody comes along 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and my work resonates for them, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that's when I feel less alone-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I'm not as strange as I feel. [LAUGHS]