Detained
2006

Single channel video
Running Time 8:00
Excerpt 00:40

Detained is meant to visually and aurally evoke a meditation on torture, the loss of innocence, and traumatic death. The piece confronts the viewer with an abstracted representation of a woman in which the feelings of being detained and tortured are expressed through gesture and textures of fire, electricity, smoke and darkness. The intent was to create a provoking piece without using graphic photos of torture victims.

There are two choreographed figures both representing different aspects of an individual enduring detainment. Both are performed by the artist and represent different levels of the spirit and body that are affected by forced loss of innocence and traumatic death. The inner character represents the mental landscape of a woman detained within torture and death. As the artist performed, video was projected upon her body and costume. She unwraps from a cocoon dressed in a wedding gown. The dress is meant to represent innocence, and then it too is peeled away. The outer character is filmed in silhouette and represents a woman burned and tortured by outside forces. The artist moves through a series of gestures that evoke the struggle of a woman caught in the maw of being Detained.