“Martha and The Lost”
“Martha and The Lost”
WHYY (PBS) Friday Arts
January 15, 2015
The figure singing and moving slowly among the tombstones is dressed entirely in full mourning regalia from the 1800’s; a black dress complete with hoop skirt and veil. She looks out of place or lost, somehow. This is the artist Martha McDonald, and through her performance here, she is mourning the history of the Woodlands, and all the living things that have been lost with the garden. McDonald has been performing and making objects and costumes for years, but it is only relatively recently that she has been combining all of this. She is making installations and doing performances within the space and with the objects (she calls this “activating” the space and objects). One of her most successful “activations” was The Weeping Dress. While in Australia, she spent scores of hours fashioning a replica of a 19th century mourning dress entirely from black crepe paper. She stood under elaborate plumbing designed to mimic the volume of tears shed by the grief stricken, and performed while black dye pooled under her petticoats.