Elizabeth Salaam: Write or Die
Write or Die is a performance and installation created by local artist and writer Elizabeth Salaam about the healing power of art and writing. For her first solo exhibition, Salaam will be writing live in an immersive textual installation at You Belong Here and virtually on Zoom. A portion of proceeds from ticket sales will fund Covid-19 rent relief for You Belong Here, a community space dedicated to empowering and supporting creatives and entrepreneurs.During the three-day performance and exhibition, Salaam will use text in journals, on hanging pages, and on an oversized projection within the space and on the writer herself to invite viewers into her process. Salaam uses writing to form an intimate connection to the reader-viewer, in which she shares childhood traumas, the lingering effects of sexual abuse, racism, and cultural isolation. For the artist, writing has been a crucial tool to discover and explore her own identity. Part installation, part performance, Salaam will be present throughout the exhibition writing live. In All the Things, a live writing performance, Salaam streams her writing as a projection on the wall and on her body as well as virtually on Zoom. She will be writing a mix of autobiographical and fictionalized stories about growing up black in Boise, Idaho.
The stories are about all the things: growing up black in a white family and community, sexual abuse, addiction, promiscuity, self-harm, and teenage treatment centers, to name just a few. In Bed Together features a bed adorned in custom “Write or Die” bedsheets. On top of the bed will be an empty notebook that Salaam will write in as part of her performance. She also invites viewers to contribute their own unwritten thoughts and stories to the notebook. Rather than the grasps at sexual intimacy attempted through promiscuity in her stories, here Salaam offers a truer intimacy of shared experience. The installation also includes Save Me, a series of six sculptures made from 250-page notebooks, each containing either a single handwritten sentence or repetitive handwritten phrases such as “I’m sorry” and “I’ve had sex with 52 boys.” Each notebook includes a unique, hidden sculptural element evoking self-harm and vulnerability. Interspersed throughout the gallery, I Was Here features hanging pages from the artist’s archive of writing, personal documents such as police transcriptions and an arrest warrant, and old love letters. The pages guide the viewer through the space. In-person visitors can purchase tickets for one-hour appointments. A maximum of six visitors will be allowed for each time slot, with social distancing protocols in effect. The gallery will be closed for sanitizing 30 minutes between appointments. Masks are required and gloves will be available for interacting with the installation. Virtual viewers will receive a Zoom link for the duration of the exhibition.