A Witch’s Banquet is a large-scale installation made entirely of paper-mache objects which appear as a 3-dimensional drawing that the viewer can enter and inhabit. The full installation consists of a banquet table, set for 13 and filled with various objects related to feasting, nature, herbalism, ancestral, plant and animal spirits and ancient Matrix civilizations. The purpose of this work is to honor the people who have been persecuted for being a “witch” as a result of patriarchal colonialism, racism and bigotry. These include individuals terrorized throughout the 400 years of the medieval inquisition as well as those from modern times, murdered for being “different” and not conforming to mainstream ideologies. This exhibition is important because the same factors that led to these horrors of the past are alive and well in our institutions and communities today. We see examples of this around the globe with extremist patriarchal policies that seek to restrict women’s autonomy over their bodies, their personal freedoms and create dangerous legislation that endangers women, trans and nonbinary people. While this work comes out of a place of extreme darkness, it is meant to honor and celebrate those individuals and their subversive spirit that did not conform to the patriarchal religious values of their cultures and who lived their lives unapologetically in the face of bigotry. This project is based on ink-drawings of interiors I made during the early months of lockdown of the pandemic. The objects in the installation are primarily made by reusing single-use plastics and recycled papers. Using paper-mache to form the objects, the surfaces are finely sanded, painted and lined with black ink to mimic drawn forms. The pieces are meant to convey the beauty, humor and magic found within the community of radical love and acceptance.
