Created for Hodinöhsö:ni’ Resurgence: Marie Watt, Decolonizing the Museum at Buffalo History Museum, Buffalo, NY.
This sign was located inside the museum. First, I searched for Nancy Bowen’s handwritten signature in historical archives. I am interested in how our signatures are unique to each of us, similar to a fingerprint. Signatures are also intimately connected to one’s hand and, by extension, one’s body. I have come to think of handwriting as having a cadence that is an extension of one’s voice. I could not find Bowen’s own signature, so in the absence of her handwriting, I embarked on writing her name with both my right and left hands simultaneously. This became a durational and meditative way to reflect on how Bowen’s story connects to my own body and to other bodies whom I call my relations. Writing with both hands at once is awkward: you have to slow down, and it becomes about the process of calling out a name.
By doubling Nancy Bowen’s name, I ask myself and others to say it twice. Twice as loud. Twice as urgently. Twice as a way of amplifying the story in a new light. Doubling her name also calls back and forward. Is it possible to summon the body, a body, through this act of embodiment?
