“Alter Texts Part One” is the initial performance/installation of a project that will occur in four parts. The piece is about an extended period of travel followed by a return to my childhood home. Four sites in different parts of the world anchor the project. Texts and objects associated with the places are arranged in a series of altar-like installations. The texts are also altered by entwining them with each other and my own words.

The performance involves readings of the texts along with improvised sound and movement. For one week in June 2013 I inhabited the ground level of The Vakratsa Museum in Skopelos, Greece to experiment with this practice. The museum’s ground floor contains many large, traditional clay urns historically used to store necessities, such as water, oil and grains. I think of the urns and the space itself as a metaphor for memory, a space of daily life and sustenance in a time that has past. The altars are specific references to moments in which I experienced absolute states of awareness. In contrast to theses states, I observe the persistence of memory and the capacity of the imagination to transport me to another time and place.