This May Be the Last Time, 2019
Performance // 45 min // 2019
Oranges were placed in a room to cover the entirety of the floor. Fresh oranges, rotting oranges, oranges cast from orange juice, and plaster cast oranges were placed in the space. A BIPOC male allowed 12 people into the space, as I lead them where to sit. No BIPOC audience members were allowed to be left outside, and was swapped with a white counterpart inside the room. The rest of the audience members were left to view the performance outside, through the glass windows, as spectators. Asian audience members were sometimes considered BIPOC and other times not.
During the performance, I interacted with each audience member, including them into stories of my childhood as it related to how I identify as a bi-racial black woman. Code-switching was used as a method of identification and confrontation depending on who I spoke to. For example: “Your (their) first inclination is to hate her (us). But you (they) can’t. You (they) feel obligated to sympathize with her (us). Because you (us) and her (them), are connected.''Afterward, I guided each person in destroying an orange and told them, or asked them, depending on who they were, to continue. I never destroyed an orange. The BIPOC male would ask members to continue to smash the oranges if they stopped. A security camera was hidden in the space, and all oranges were destroyed.