1982
1982 is so named because it evokes a time when a duel cassette, oversized boombox and the music it played seldom left my side. As much appendage as appliance, I brought it to work, on road trips and to the beach. I played it at home and shared it with the company I kept. This object, now rendered silent by layers of tiny glass beads and thread, is about a time of innocence, a time of celebration. It is also about the coming turbulence that would come to define that decade for me, and for so many of my friends.
Purchased with my first credit card, a boombox, and the music it played, provided an introduction to the mysterious realm of the adult. Like me, it came with a collection of knobs and buttons I didn’t quite know how to operate but that seemed compelling nonetheless. At twenty two years old, I had very little experience with love, loss, heartbreak or sex, The music I listened to allowed me to conjure my life to come and to feel vicariously what I had yet to experience for myself.
I didn’t know it then but I clearly see it now. The music we listen to is instinctual and tribal. It draws people to us and keeps others at bay. The thumping drone of disco or the smoky voices of people who had experienced life in ways that I had not, helped me to find my familiars and prepared me as best it could for what was to come.
As I set out to try everything and unwrap every gift of my youth, I imagined a future full of possibility. It was exhilarating, but just as I experienced so many firsts; many friends, too many to count, would soon discover that their futures were to be cut short by a terrifying new virus. I can no longer hear the music I listened to then, without thinking of all those I once sweated the dance floor with. The 1980’s for me are the embodiment of bittersweet. This object evokes the echo of music that decorated my path in a time before grief and is in remembrance of so many members of my tribe who sang along.
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015
1982
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015
1982
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015
1982
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015
1982
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015
1982
Found object covered in sewn glass beads.
2015