Barabbas’ Garden
Jenn Cacciola
2018, Multimedia Installation
Embroidered tapestry, pastel, acrylic, oil on canvas, wire, printed image, epoxy resin. 7' x 30'
Using ecological/botanical metaphor for human growth in a social environment, Barabbas’ Garden questions how personal growth occurs while a person is affected by decisions, circumstances, and the intersection between self and others. The Gumbo Limbo tree sheds its flaky bark in order to prevent colonization by parasitic insects. The Cecropia tree is the "pioneer species", venturing into eroded or burned lands to provide shade, restore the soil and initiate regrowth. Orangutan families rarely sleep in the same nest twice, and adult males lead solitary lives once leaving their mothers as adolescents. Similarly, humans take up certain roles dependent on social and environmental movements in each generation.
The audio accompanying the tapestry includes fragments of Cacciola's voicemail recordings saved over the past decade as well as portions of individual interviews that she conducted with participants, most of whom she met for the first time during their interview. A soundscape crafted from edited pieces of words serves as a rumbling interlude during the audio piece, where the human voice resembles the sounds of a rainforest in the nighttime.
Through the combination of mediums in this installation (free-stitch embroidery, painting, collage, poetry text, audio, etc), viewers are entered into the confusion, polarity, and intensity of desire present in the act of repeatedly "being" the identity that we have of ourselves, and of experiencing others' identities.
