Ice as a Metaphor to Duration in Performance Art

When I consider notions of time in performance art, I think of water. Water transitions to ice and vapor depending on the temperature of its environment. In my current work, I solidify performance time as ice, re-examining the vocabulary of my past performances in the form of ice: a chain of bones, a hallah dress, embraced thorns. I cast these objects in ice and hang them for display, letting them rhythmically dissolve into puddles. Each of these frozen sculptures embody a waiting-to-happen performance and the fragile temporality of its current state, presenting the deformation and liquidation of performance over time, measuring performance time in buckets of water. 

Freezing Time (video)

In ‘Freezing Time’ (2022) I emerge from a water hole in a frozen lake, dragging a chain of femur and tibia bones (our skeletal infrastructure for walking) anchored to its center. Walking in circles, the bones on my shoulders, I mark the Roman symbols of time with my freezing feet. The video performance ends when I complete the marking of clock time and cold plunge into the freezing lake. This video was made in a direct relation to Wish Bones (2005-2009), in which I carry a chain of dry cow bones throughout various historical sites in Israel, from the Sataf ruins of a depopulated Palestinian village which sat atop of a 4,000 BCE Chalcolithic agricultural village, through the Jerusalem Forests and Tel Aviv beach at dawn; the odyssey concluded in Akhziv, the ruins of a Palestinian village which sat atop layers of excavated remains dating back to the Canaanite culture. At this site I stacked the bones into a cairn and let them drown in the sea. When revisiting the bones now, I decided to work with models of human tibia and femur bones to symbolize migration and walking. 

For thousands of years ice was used to preserve humanity, I use ice to preserve humanness, leaving traces that could teach future generations what it felt like to be human- what intimacy looks like, how fear or pain or loss feel like. I dug a hole in the middle of a frozen lake which was about twenty inches thick. The vast ice block reminded me of the lost industry of ice harvesting, which boomed in the area in the 1800’s, when ice was considered a cold weather crop, shipped to nearby cities and abroad. In our climate change era, ice became a visual symbol to the magnitude of our approaching disaster. We estimate humanity’s prospects by measuring melting icebergs. I measure performance in buckets.