The Lost Department

Mixed media installation and performance, 2017. 

The Lost Department consists of a waiting room where folks await their appointment and an office space where we contextualize a loss together. Participants communicate their loss on their own terms while I map what I hear onto a Lost poster with a piece of carbon paper below. The Lost Poster then gets copied and categorized into types of losses as determined by the participant. Finally, the participant is given the carbon paper trace of their loss and my business card in an envelope that's stamped with the date and "Loss Filed for Processing." This project works to illuminate the deeply personal and extraordinarily universal and interconnected nature of loss.