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HD Video Animation / Performance
Duration: 3:27 minutes
Port Jefferson Station, Long Island, New York
2008
© Copyright 2008 by Verónica Peña
Don't Leave

Before I left, my grandfather told me: “It would make me very happy if you would not leave Verónica”. This video portrays a ritual that I enacted in order to bring my family to the place where I was. The statement below describes my experience of the performance:

“I found myself sitting in the corner of my bedroom facing the wall. I sat there darkening the wall with charcoal and erasing lines to draw a crochet pattern. I leaned back against the drawing, and with a mask covering my head, I remained there. I moved my head from side to side. I kept still and listened to my breath.

I have been trying to notice the things that I do, which seem normal to me, but which may be not. When I started wondering why instead of drawing on paper I was drawing on the wall, I realized that I was also kissing the door of my bedroom. I suddenly found myself doing these things, without realizing when or why the gesture began. Because of this, I thought that maybe it is not me who wants to kiss the door, but the door who wants to kiss me.

Some months ago, my grandfather asked me to stay. Maybe it is he who is making me draw on the wall and put a mask on, to be with me.”





HD Video Animation / Performance
Duration: 3:27 minutes
Port Jefferson Station, Long Island, New York
2008
© Copyright 2008 by Verónica Peña