Marilyn Arsem Bodies in the Land at The Momentary

Marilyn Arsem will perform a durational work called Bodies in the Land at The Momentary, in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA, from Tuesday, September 13th to Sunday, September 18th, 2022.  

This work responds to their current exhibition A Divided Landscape, and to the elusiveness of the presence of the people who have occupied Benton County, Arkansas and altered the landscape.  Accounts of migration, ambition, love, alongside violence, illness, and death offer us insight into a world forgotten, and perhaps a key to understanding our world today.

Throughout the hours that The Momentary is open in the week of September 13th to September 18th, Arsem will read aloud the published death notices of the people of Benton County. In the language of their times, these notices reveal the lives of ordinary people who lived in this region. But only some of their names are recorded, and many remain unknown. Is it possible to restore what has been obliterated, lost, forgotten?

We exist in landscapes where bodies have disappeared into the earth, with little to no record of their existence in the present. And yet, the world we live in today is shaped by those people and their beliefs, their desires, and their decisions. We are who we are today because of them. Every part of our environment has been touched by the decisions of the past. 

Link to The Momentary website:  https://themomentary.org/calendar/marilyn-arsem/

Marilyn Arsem in Monomyths Stage 9: Apotheosis - Waiting for Sunrise, FADO Performance Art Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, January 13-14, 2017.  Photo by Henry Chan.