Memento mori

Indira Allegra

Memento mori ring. originally fabricated as a ribbon slide to commem- orate the death of “F.E.” England, 1689. Gold, glass, ivory, gold wire, and hair. Courtesy, Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Susan M. Yecies.

All I can give you is my hair
so I can become something else
so you might receive
the quality of my line
I pluck this
so that you might receive
the reservoir of memory held at the base
which flows through the tip
for you to inherit
this representation of style
but not the style itself
its an overt performance darling
of culture work
cutting along the color line
Caldwell’s stage
for a polyrhythmic
polyspecies
polymaterial
shells and pins
gold plated necessities
pushing all spectators out of the space
I am because we are
spiraled and zig zagged
entangled by design
the distance of our hair
from the scalp
a measure of prosthesis
lending itself
to a mortal proprioception
small moments shed
throughout the day

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Indira Allegra is a conceptual artist and founder of Cazimi Studio—using weaving as a conceptual framework to work with tension off the loom and in the world. Allegra’s work has been featured in The Art Newspaper, Artnet, Art Journal, BOMB Magazine, e-flux, SF Chronicle, Topical Cream and ARTFORUM. Allegra’s writing has been featured in Theater, TEXTILE, American Craft Magazine, Panorama, Manual: A Journal About Art & Its Making among others. Their work has received support and recognition from Creative Capital, United States Artists Fellowship, Burke Prize, Gerbode Choreographer Award and The Pew Center for the Arts & Heritage. Allegra is the author of Tension Studies and Dispersal of a Feeling: Bloodnotes on Choreography & Illness.