WE PUT OUR BODIES ON THE ALTAR (2020)

INSTALLATION &
PERFORMANCE ART

  • The work explores ritual, autonomy, connection, and access.

    Immersive component: For the duration of the month long exhibit, the installation invited visitors to sit on the sculpture, with instructions and suggestions in the projections of how they might engage with themselves and each other upon the life-size altar.

    The sculpture was built to hold over 400 pounds and a working, ADA-compliant wheelchair painted gold and neon pink. The installation includes the artist’s recorded voice narrating the text projections, intertwined with audio design, inviting those who couldn’t see the projections but could hear to access this multidimensional artwork.

    The piece presents accessibility built into the work, not an afterthought.

Catalogue (Anna Goodman Herrick FKA Anna Talhami)

We Put Our Bodies on the Altar
Installation and performance art activation
Sculpture, Projection Art, Audio recordings, Live Performance Art

Components:

Altar with Wheelchair Ramp
Sculpture
wood, aluminum, galvanized steel, sawdust, found stones, found branches, gold eyeliner, raw fabric for dance club clothes (mixed metal chainmail)
12” x 120” x 120”

We Put Our Bodies on the Altar Projections
Original digital typography, motion graphics, and video projection, single-channel video projection,
approx 240” x 240”
height variable
4 minutes (Loop)

We Put Our Bodies on the Altar Audio
Installation
Dual-Channel Audio recording, sound design, mp3 player, headphones
4 minutes (Loop)


Live opening and closing night performance art and poetry by the artist
20 minutes each

Root Division Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Reflections on Exile Group Exhibit

A woman with dark hair, dressed in black, squatting on a wooden platform with a gold border inside an art gallery. She is looking at the camera with a neutral expression. The gallery has plain white walls, and a small black and pink ramp is attached to the platform.

Anna Goodman Herrick, artist, on their sculpture, Altar with Wheelchair Ramp

Altar with Wheelchair Ramp
Sculpture
wood, aluminum, galvanized steel, sawdust, found stones, found branches, gold eyeliner, raw fabric for dance club clothes (mixed metal chainmail)
12” x 120” x 120”

Component of installation

We Put Our Bodies on the Altar

Time-Based Performance Art
Approx. 20 minutes
time variable

Opening and closing Night performance art and activation.
Exhibition visitors interact with Anna’s performance art and installation, including visual and auditory components.

  • The piece explores embodiment, sovereignty, connection, ritual and access.

    In this work, audience members volunteer to sit on the life-size altar, and Anna “worships” them, in a choreographed ritual. Elements the artist offered to the altar of pedestaled audience members: stones and branches found in nature. Anna wore all white at the opening and all black at the closing, symbolizing a moon cycle, exploring ritual and nature.

    Responses from audience volunteers often included tears and sharing they felt introspection regarding their self-connection and interconnection with others. The performance art asks the questions in the projections, embodied: Who has honored you? Who has sacrificed? What have you sacrificed? What have you honored? What have you offered?

Closing Night Performance

Audience participation in performance art:

People standing in line at an indoor event, some with hooded clothing, and a woman in white robe with a hood gesturing with her hands.

Archival Pigment Prints
36” x 48”