Artists at Home: Leigh Davis
Leigh Davis is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the intersection of culture, community, and memory. In recent years, she has been producing a body of work about end-of-life experiences (ELEs) and their role as tools to help us understand both the emotional intricacy of grief and the ways in which we construct our beliefs about human consciousness and a possible afterlife. Her projects have taken the form of shrines, altars, and collections of various objects and images that work together to form a cohesive and immersive installation. Leigh is drawn to sites that present their own spirituality or sense of community, using this intrinsic human quality to complement the stories represented in the installations. Her goal is to create connections—between subject and audience, and among audience members within the space.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON CURRENTLY?
Over the past few years, I have been producing a body of work about end of life experiences (commonly shortened to ELEs) and their role as tools to help us understand the emotional intricacy of grief and the ways in which we construct our beliefs about human consciousness and a possible afterlife. In 2018, I met and began working with P.M.H. Atwater, a researcher of near-death experiences (NDEs). Her studies over a 40-year period have established that these phenomena are not anomalies but part of a limitless genre—experiences of the transformation of consciousness. Combining experimentation with altered states of consciousness, mysticism, psychic phenomena, and the transformational process, P.M.H. employs her research to reveal what transformations of consciousness are, why we have them, and where they lead us (she has allegedly died and come back to life three times).
My work with P.M.H, combined with the sense of urgency, anxiety, and fear gripping our country in the face of political chaos and crisis, inspired the concept for my current project, The Portal. This project expands on my recent installations inviting visitors to participate in the experience, and to imagine or question what may exist on the other side of death. My intention is to create an installation for visitors to experience the sense that they are traveling from one realm (life) to another (afterlife). Ultimately, the project works to engage with and complicate the very tangible anxiety of our current situation, while simultaneously situating these fears within the context of a larger existential question. I intend to create an experience where audiences can participate and reflect upon how we as humans conceptualize life, death, and this present moment.
DESCRIBE YOUR PROCESS WHEN BEGINNING A NEW PROJECT
My work is shaped by the people I meet and the conversations we have, often about aspects of humanity that keep us apart and bring us together. I work on my projects for long periods of time and the process involves extensive research and fieldwork; documenting images, collecting objects, conducting interviews, archiving materials, and determining sites for exhibition.
ARE THERE ANY MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOUR WORK THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY?
In the process of producing a body of work that explores the modern rituals surrounding death and the remnants of the life left behind, I’ve definitely encountered some resistance. Many people, particularly in this country, do not prefer to acknowledge death head on. What I try to communicate through my work, is that loss causes immense grief, but this disruption need not be interpreted negatively. Opening discussion around death is not always morbid, but can be opening in a transformational way, so I work to design public projects as an attempt to examine the ways in which death can reaffirm community bonds while also providing space for individual reflection. Ultimately, I create spaces where people can cope with the subject in a generative and meaningful way.
WHAT IS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME?
The environmental issues we face today are the most daunting (and then you add on the current pandemic, our healthcare system, the many social/economic layers within a poorly led and divided country).
HAS COVID-19 IMPACTED YOUR PRACTICE?
I’m not working as much, but my practice is slowly coming back into this new life at home. It’s not a priority in the same way, though it is very healing. I am editing a short video begun prior to the stay at home order which was for a now cancelled event, The Survivalists (super related to the present moment). I’m writing a little bit, reading a lot, and making art with my kids who are 3 and 6, which makes me feel a less bed about half-ass parenting otherwise. I’m still connected with many artists, friends, and the people I care about. I try to have a call once a day and keep it at that due to screen fatigue. I am online teaching a studio course and find it very interesting to manage and play with a new form of connecting. I’m not going to my studio. I am so fortunate to be able to make anything at all. I have a supportive partner, comfortable home, food, our health, social connection, a stoop to sit on. I know this experience will evolve and that things transform day to day. My art practice will do the same as it always has.
