“I promise to stay in touch” invites a tender awareness of body and state—both a state of being and one’s relationship to entities of power. Marissa Cote’s beautifully slow-hand woven forms are stretched, punctured by metal hooks, twisted. Text-based pieces contextualize Cote’s study of radical love and care within (and on the peripheries of) American sociopolitical systems. Through language networks and fabric forms that at times resemble skin being pulled from the body, Cote presents entry points that connect one’s personal body to their political body.
An abstracted American flag hangs in the space and calls upon visitors to position themselves as citizens. Yard signs with front-and-back text are mounted on boxes of turf grass. FLESH:STRETCH, MOMENT:MONUMENT, RAGE:RITUAL. These signs aren’t necessarily presenting straightforward contradictions; there is nuance in what’s being communicated. Perhaps they are keywords to guide complex lines of inquiry. The signs themselves are strong symbols, reminding me of the markers we stick in our yards to declare allegiances or identities. Perched on a step, a stack of vocabulary lists assembled by the artist guides our meaning-making. Words include TEAR, BUTLER, OCTAVIA, STAY, VIOLENCE, HOOKS, BELL, RIGOR, PRACTICE, TUG, PILE, LOVE (IDEA), LOVE (ACTION), WAIT, SCAR, HISTORY, PRECIOUS.
In the introductory wall text, quotes by James Baldwin and Toni Morrison and an excerpt from “Understanding Whiteness” (authored by the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Center) root Cote’s questions around racial identity and the pursuit of “good love.” Cote explicitly positions herself as a white woman, thus initiating a deconstruction of her innate proximity to power. At risk of slipping into white feminist semantics, the exhibition commits to an intersectional framework, embedding a variety of thinkers and writers into the work, like an artistic bibliography. The show doesn’t point toward a complete understanding of our national landscape or a perfect deconstruction by any means. Cote aims to generate questions and open fissures of curiosity and vulnerability.
