A few months ago I was introduced to Kentucky-based artist L.A. Watson’s video piece, What Makes For a Grievable Life? (2009). In this piece, the frozen, decapitated, and plucked body of a chicken, the kind found in any grocery store, is unwrapped and tenderly placed in a shallow, hand-dug grave. Yellow flowers are placed on the grave, a gesture which, when combined with the sad-sounding music added to the video, emphasizes the artist’s attempt at memorialization of this body, a body that, in other contexts, would be consumed and forgotten. This is a compelling piece, one that disrupts assumptions and conventions about which bodies, lives, and deaths count in our contemporary society.

Read the full article.