WEBVTT

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[Janine Antoni: Milagros]

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You know, a lot of people don't know

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what the coccyx looks like,

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but really, it's the site of our severed tail.

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I love the cup of the sacrum and the cup of the hand,

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as if they're about to shake hands.

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So this is a very unusual--and impossible--

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coming together of two body parts.

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The whole idea around this work was really about grafting.

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When you graft one plant to another,

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then they fuse together.

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For years, I've been fascinated with

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these things called 'milagros'.

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They're found in Portugal,

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in Spain, in Mexico,

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and in Brazil.

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The ones that people are most familiar with are

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these small medallions that are shaped like

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an arm, or a leg,

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or a heart.

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But they also have them in three dimensions.

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The way they're used is that

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if you have an ailment--

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if you have a problem with your foot--

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you would go and buy one of these,

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and you'd take it to the church.

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They hang them on the ceilings of the church,

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so the entire ceiling is filled with body parts.

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I was very inspired by these more simple milagros

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that are more generalized.

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In a way, that foot becomes anyone's foot.

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I started with very specific pairings that I was interested in,

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and then I took those gestures

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and I made milagros out of them.

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I mean, all the pieces have been sanded

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for days and days and days.

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They feel like they've been weathered

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by something that seems familiar,

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like a piece of sea glass in the ocean.

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The fact that you feel that this thing has a history,

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I think that's important.

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You know, here I am, cutting the body up into parts,

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and not thinking about the importance of the sever.

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And so to acknowledge that sever was, I think,

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crucial to whole installation.

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['Within' -- Janine Antoni]

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And so, the first thing that you witness

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when you come into the space

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is a sever--

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and a very dramatic sever--

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and this ascension into the ceiling.

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Initially, I wanted to hang the roots from the ceiling,

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and hang the milagros them.

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This trunk is kind of grafted to the building itself,

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and then when the trunk goes through the ceiling,

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it's grafted to a table on the second floor

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with milagros.

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When I was a little girl,

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I had an aunt--

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her name was Auntie Eileen.

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She came over every Tuesday to have tea--

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she was English.

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And, I would sit and have tea with her,

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and she would teach me how to drink tea like a lady.

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Part of that was learning how to cross my legs.

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I thought it was funny to take the bone from one leg

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and cross it with the skin of the other leg.

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I sunk that bone right into the thigh

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so that they are really fused together.

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So in the piece, there's really no chance

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of uncrossing my legs.

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When you stand in front of the object,

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I want you to imagine how it's been made.

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And the reality is that

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we are in contact with a lot of objects

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and we have no idea how they are made.

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Making any of my work is a form of healing--

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that, in making, I can somehow locate myself

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in relationship to others

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and my environment.

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If somebody comes along

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and my work resonates for them,

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that's when I feel less alone--

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that I'm not as strange as I feel. [LAUGHS]