Taja Lindley
Bag Lady in Black: Iteration 2, 2019
Performance film and bag installation
Film duration: 3 minutes, 24 seconds
Performance by Taja Lindley; written & choreographed by Taja Lindley; Director of Photography: Paul Notice; editing by Paul Notice; sound design by Edson Sean; produced by Taja Lindley
Courtesy of the artist
In Bag Lady in Black: Iteration 2, Taja Lindley’s practice as memory worker, healer, and activist manifests in a haunting film and a black trash bag installation that envelopes the wall. Each bag represents a Black life that has been stolen by state-sanctioned violence; the act of creating the installation becomes a way to honor the dead. Lindley describes the protagonist of the film as “a primordial figure who communes with the ancestors and emerges from the rubble of forgotten histories.” Cloaking herself in trash bags, she transforms the disposable into something sacred. The film underscores Lindley’s insistence that the act of remembering is an obligation of the living and investigates how protest, rage, and grief can be channeled to create a more just world.
