By Simone Zapata
October 3rd, 2021
about the work
I ask Yvonne, where do we go from here?
To carry ten wands :
Voices Under Water is a multimedia installation incorporating field recordings, interviews, medical documents, video, and ten branches – representing ten wands.
Five years ago I began recording interviews with my aunt Yvonne and our family members about their lived experiences with her schizophrenia. My intention was to make a zine, a testimony to the ways they discover, navigate, and endure this amorphous and incurable disorder. And then, in October 2018, Yvonne died suddenly from colon cancer. By the time doctors caught it, the cancer had grown to consume her entire pelvis region. Yvonne called it a worm.
During the two Octobers since Yvonne’s death I engaged in a daily ritual where I attempted to communicate with her through tarot cards. During one of these visits I asked where she was going, and pulled the Ten of Wands. In another visit, I asked where I was headed, and pulled the Ten of Wands. Voices Under Water tracks the persistence of life after loss. Of bodies between worlds. The burdens we hold are never resolved : they are transformed : they transform us : we carry each other : one step at a time.
May grief be not a thing to figure out, but a way to figure deeply into.
To carry ten wands :
bio
Simone Zapata is a poet from San Jose, CA. Her work is driven by documentary strategies and forms that feel. She graduated from the MFA in Creative Writing program at CalArts in 2021.
The full sound and video recording of this installation can be found on YouTube at https://bit.ly/3m6fnZb