this spring we uncovered a japanese maple on the property where we rent our home. we cared for it for two months before the landlord cut back the whole yard: razed everything to the ground. now, i can't bring myself to visit
— or —
i think you may be disappointed
JULY 2025
Concept, sound design + text, wearable apparatus + performance: Alethea Alexander
created and performed for Threshold Poetics: Desire Machine
Common Objects Gallery (CAM), Seattle, WA
"This Spring We Uncovered a Japanese Maple On the Property Where We Rent Our Home. . . (or: I Think You May Be Disappointed)" is an investigation of relationality, desire, and context. Bound to place and other through high-tension, stretchable, extended fingertips (recycled bike tubes, pleather, carabiners) one body is hindered and supported by the choices, weight, stability and freedom of the machinery of place, time and audience.
This work was built for Threshold Poetics: Desire Machine, a poetic queer/trans performance art event produced by the curatorial duet Cass Garison + Martha Ryan. The second in a series of interdisciplinary happenings curated by this team, the event was inspired by Gilles Deleuze's proposition of society, community and selfhood as enmeshed machinery, driven to revolution and action by tapping into desire. Performers included local and national movement and poetry artists.