Laundry/Ecstasy

Monastery of the Holy Land in America

Washington DC

2021

Installation view, Elevate Gallery at 21cMuseum Hotel, Chicago
Colin Lyons Photography, 2023

Installation view, Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land, Washington, DC
Image credit: Matthew Russo, 2021

Laundry/Ecstasy is an installation and eight hour performance set in the former laundry room of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington DC. In a religious house, a complex site of spiritual practice, daily labor, intellectual freedom and sometimes oppressive structure, I repeatedly ironed linens from five generations of women in my family. Beginning in at dawn I pressed and folded hand-embroidered cloth for the length of a workday, taking two 15-minute breaks and one lunch break in accordance with state labor laws.

A video documents the passing of time in a patch of sunlight moving across the wall and the hourly tolling of church bells. Viewers are invited to see but not enter this cloistered space, to witness physical movements and metaphysical labors that point to the interiority of spiritual experience and the often-unrecorded history of domestic work.

Installation view, Katzen Art Center, Washington, DC
Image credit: Matthew Russo, 2021