Castleberry Hill Installation

In March 2012, I was a given the opportunity to create an outdoor installation using the 23 wedding dresses I had collected at that time.

In a private location in the historic Castleberry Hill neighborhood in downtown Atlanta, I suspended the dresses from iron girders and rafters thirty feet high up in the air. The dresses were exposed to the outdoors for two months.

My intent was to display them as hides, like skins hanging in the safari tent – an 1800s etching embedded in my memory.

After months of planning, I was surprised that they did not hang like the dead animal skins I had envisioned. Instead each dress took on a life of its own, and the scope of vision expanded as they rocked and spun around, and billowed up for a few seconds at a time.

On rainy days they grew heavy. As Spring unveiled itself, clouds of yellow pollen collected on their fabric, and black bugs were trapped inside. Each day was an unexpected dance of motion and worry as they began to fall.

The installation was not publicized. Only a few people witnessed this unique event. Those who saw it expressed curiosity and delight. Most offered their own interpretations as the installation changed and evolved.

As continue to take these relics of marriage “out of the box,” my goal is to create installations that act as invitations for the public to dialogue on the mythology and beliefs around the concept of marriage.

A two-minute video of the first day of the Relics of Marriage installation at Castleberry Hill, Atlanta, GA, 2012: