A memory of affection

Critical text

Katia Canton November 2000

Index / Katia Canton

Since 1994, Beth Moysés has taken up the bridal gown as an instrument for the symbolic articulation of love relationships and all that concerns them.

At first, she lined the ceiling of a chapel with an arsenal of bridal gowns. Raised towards the heights, they spoke of pledges, exposed failed expectations, and attested to the literal absence of firm ground. Hanging by their skirts, stuffed with fabric, the anonymous, “bodyless” dresses exuded loneliness and disenchantment; they suggested a field mined with tears.

Today, disenchanted criticism has given way to a vigorous performance-manifesto. The gowns are finally being (re)occupied. Having descended to the ground, they are now inhabited by the women to whom they once belonged. Regardless of how old, tight or loose, short or long these gowns may now be, as the women put them on, they (re)claim memories of love or affection that the mere presence of the gown once ritualised at a specific moment in the past.

The bodies of these women wearing bridal gowns parade through the streets and thoroughfares of the city, along an itinerary in which past promises come together to claim future fulfilment. May every dream contained in the symbol of the white gown come true, becoming a banner of peace, love, and solidarity that mirrors and permeates the forevermore.

As they pluck the petals from the roses they carry and scatter them along their way, the women seem to seek to retrace memory, contaminating both the urban space and its inhabitants with feelings of peace and affection. Finally, at the end of the parade, the thorny, bare rose stems are placed in a deep hole that the women dig with their own hands. Then, all distress is buried in a symbolic act that combines bravery and resignation.

Thus, the performance-manifesto transcends all artistic boundaries and acquires a sense of amorous urgency within a universe of everyday violence, which begins in family relationships and spreads to all kinds of situations in urban life.

May the women in white complete their journey, influencing others along the way. May these women ultimately bury all their thorns.

And may their path replace resignation and consolation with a claim for a form of generous and contagious affection. May this path be taken up — and followed.