Hello My Name Is

Coachella Valley, CA – 2017

Hello My Name Is______. Deconstructing the self. Breaking apart the expectation. I’m tired. Tired of unfulfilling day jobs. Tired of being labeled. Tired of being told who to be. How to be. What to be. Where to be. Sewn together in a quilt of protest were all the uniforms I held onto from the jobs that required that conformity. The sameness of curation. The sameness that chipped away at my individuality. The sameness that made me just a service clerk; a slave to the customer; a robotic unit to be programmed; a blank label among the other people made into blank labels. A branded entity to be abused by those served; to be yelled at an inch from my face. To be spat at and criticized for a single item received incorrectly. I cut each piece of this humiliating assimilation, adorning myself with the scraps of each article of dehumanization, inviting the audience to come up after each addition and present me with another document, another piece of paper to sign away my freedom. Another application, another tax form, another numerical identification; and place a “Hello My Name Is” sticker on my chest. The paper received was contemplated and then crumpled up and thrown on the ground. I cut out and adorned another piece of tattered clothing, until all the layers created a final broken surface on my body.

Performance for Morton Salt Children’s Religious Revival – Year Ten

_____________________________________________________________________________