On Friday, June 23, I premiered “Self, Exhibition” which ran for 24 hours at Glasshouse in Brooklyn as part of the Neo Domestic Performance Art Festival.

This work was inspired by studies of multiverse theory, the hypothetical set of potential universes including the one in which we live, and the attempt to connect with different variations of ourselves that exist in other times and spaces. I read The Double by Dostoevsky, fascinated with the idea of the doppelgänger.

I arrived at Glasshouse at 6 pm with a large mirror, a chair, a white jumpsuit, and black tape. These were the materials chosen for the performance.

At 7 pm, I sat down in a chair and began to observe myself in the mirror facing me.

Around midnight the gallery closed. I was left alone and in the front of the space, exposed to the street through the night. It was then that this work started to shift and take new meaning. Being so isolated brought up so much—feelings of freedom, thrill, loneliness, fear, and humiliation.

The gallery opened again at 9 am. I began to notice different forms of my image shifting as I exhausted the body. In the afternoon many entering the gallery passed by me altogether, not realizing the work as performance. For those who did observe my work, I was amused as to how many photographs were immediately taken. The large mirror provided the space for selfies and the viewer to have reflected what I was exhibiting.

In the final hours of the work, I reached an altered state of consciousness, facing delirium and hallucination. I experienced hunger, body chills, and nausea. I lost concept of time, space, and form. Though movements were subtle, the mind raced and also did nothing. I fought to stay awake, and cried in pain.

Ten minutes before 7 pm, I was notified that I had just a few remaining minutes left. These minutes felt like days. At 7 the room applauded. I saw a room of people in front of me—I had not been aware of them—as I slowly came back to this reality. My body was in shock because of what had taken place.

All mirroring is a way to understand. To sit is to mirror—sitting influences the other’s unconscious, through nonverbal communication. Mirrors provide room for one to observe the image they wish to see reflected.