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Shadow Play

Loss and Performativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2023

Amy Cook
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Abstract

We perceive loss by tracing the contours of what we invent in its place. When a work of art invites spectators to engage with it, it offers them an opportunity to process loss. Such artworks can be theatrical, visual, or architectural—like a public memorial; what unites them is the experience of the spectator. Individual and personal experiences of grief connect with the social expressions of large-scale loss when the one shows up, fractal-like, in the details of the other.

Type
Article
Information
TDR , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 57 - 71
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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