Why do I find these figures, Incan mummies, so fascinating—the images are powerful, poignant and yet… and, of course, they are actual individuals literally pared to the bone, actual people that were carried to all festivals and rites, included even in death.
They represent dreams of the past, seeds for the future. They are memories of my youth, the process of aging, and the voices of my dead. And carrying one’s dead around—don’t we all. So this is for Pauline, Chaike and Selma; my father and my mother; my ex life; my unborn children; my hopes and dreams distorted by memory. Still precious, carried along, inspiring, in spite of, part and parcel of me.
Figures huddled into themselves, bundled up against their woes. Enduring and patient, suffering, these are the poor after war or famine or other disaster.
