Monument to 6% | 2015 | performance | 01:00:00

Monument to 6% is a durational performance and meditation on the continual state-sanctioned violence targeted against black and brown bodies; it asked the performers, as well as the viewers involved to take part in the erection of a monument by bearing witness to its formation and failure. Similarly, I used my body to literally bear the weight and release of such an endeavor in a way that called to mind the imagery and feminist theory of This Bridge Called My Back. As another performer, artist Tasha Ceyan, dipped rocks in a charcoal, dirt and oil mixture and placed them on my back to build this rock shrine, I recited, from my arms, a list of names of black and brown people murdered by police during 2006-2015. Serving as both a private and public display of mediation and remembrance, Monument to 6% visualized our successes and failures in bringing justice to the lives we are losing at the hands of structural racism.

photo by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

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