Dark Water, performed by Lauryn Youden, is an auto-theoretical text that examines the history of mourning, lamentation, and death as central to the daily lives of European society during the rise of capitalist patriarchy and the plague, as well as the divinatory and ritualistic practices used by many to endure this period of time. Interwoven between passages are Youden’s personal experiences with ritualistic lamentation and intergenerational trauma expressed through poetry and healing found in Crip Magic practices.
2020, Sound recording of a performance
This piece was accompanied with music by Dylan Spencer-Davidson and presented at Ecology of Attention #1: FOMO
Lauryn Youden is a performance and installation artist, poet and independent curator based in Berlin. Her practice derives from her research and navigation of modern Western medicine, the medical-industrial complex, “alternative” healing practices, and traditional medicine for the treatment of her chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. By publicly presenting her personal experiences and re-evaluations of the history of medicine through a feminist Crip queer lens, her work illuminates and advocates for repressed, marginalized, and forgotten practices of care and knowledge.
In 2016, Youden was awarded the Berlin Art Prize. She has since been awarded artist-in-residences at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (DE) in 2020 and has upcoming residencies at Rupert, Vilnius (LT) and Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (UK) in 2021. She has performed and exhibited internationally at institutions including (selection): E-WERK Luckenwalde (DE), Shedhalle, Zurich (CH), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL), Frye Art Museum, Seattle (US), Volksbühne, Berlin (DE), Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (DE) and recently exhibited at Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (CH) as part of the exhibition Kosmos Emma Kunz: Eine Visionärin im Dialog mit zeitgenössischer Kunst.