The Dress Rehearsal series is composed of short films dealing with the final separation of a daughter from her mother. The videos all start with a long still shot of the dead mother who has clearly succumbed to a sudden and violent death. The artist’s mother “dies” in many melodramatic, soap-operatic ways. It is never clear whether she was murdered by her daughter or somebody else, killed in a sudden accident or even committed suicide. The overarching theme of Dress Rehearsal is the universal existential fear of facing a parent’s death.
On the other hand, thanks to the low-tech technique of screening the films in reverse, the mother’s death is annulled time and again. By revealing all the cheap cinematic tricks involved in the theatrical production of the death scenes, they become trivialized, stripped of their gruesomeness. Humor is the chosen tool to replace the horror of the situations. Reenacting or rehearsing the many ways in which the mother may die will perhaps make it easier for her daughter to accept her departure, but in the meantime, mother and daughter seem to thoroughly amuse themselves through their joint participation in this project.

Less Reading...