Cordoglio, 2010, Silver and hair from an early XXth century wig, 3 x 5 x 0.6 cm.
Cordoglio, 2010, Copper and hair from an early XXth century wig, 2.5 x 5.5 x 0.7cm.
Cordoglio, the Italian word for mourning, the pain of the heart. Lockets were used in the XVIII and XIX century to keep pieces of bone, hair, and even skin of love ones, as a keepsake. In some Latin cultures during the period of mourning the women of the family plucked off their hair to place it on the corpse of their a loved one. The hair in the lockets is human hair that I extracted for wigs made for a cancer patient that passed away. The idea of mourning through the body of a third person, in this case an anonymous person, is interesting especially when there are no remains to mourn. Mourning processes though a third person basis is described by Derrida.