SABBATH QUEEN

The Sabbath Queen is my newest costume project contending with Jewish identify and ritual. It took me a full year to create and transform myself into this satyrical, wearable, critical representation of right wing Jewish political power, inspired by the reign and painted portraits of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

I premiered this project by performing as the Sabbath Queen at Jewish Currents Magazine’s 2024 conference, titled Jewish Currents Live. It was such an incredible experience!! Many thanks to the folks at Jewish Currents for offering me the perfect context and venue for this work. Click below to see the full performance (it’s just under 4 minutes), and hear what the Queen has to say:

My Sabbath Queen costume combines symbols of Tudor power with visual representations of items used on the Jewish Sabbath table. I’ve employed Queen Elizabeth’s aesthetics in order to pose as, and embody, my vision of Judaism’s most famous female monarch – the invisible, holy entity who visits Jews at their Sabbath tables each Friday night to begin the holiday. The garment includes ritual objects used routinely during the Sabbath – the hat is fashioned from actual challah bread, and a real challah cover makes up both the bodice and shoulders. You can also see Elizabeth’s central symbols of political power in the embroidery here, her Tudor rose and pearl adornments.

Sabbath Queen references not only Queen Elizabeth's looks, but also her politics, specifically her central role in encouraging and funding the beginnings of the British empire. Alongside showcasing how Jewish ritual objects copy the aesthetics of European Christian royalty, Sabbath Queen also critically and comedically examines, through both photography and live performance, the contemporary Jewish relationship to conservative political power. My satirical version of this queen is a haughty, superior, rightwing Zionist, imperialist, intolerant, and lethally confident monarch.

Sabbath Queen will also be on exhibit in 2025, as part of my forthcoming solo show supported by the Invisible Dog Art Center, one of my favorite art organizations in the world. Stay tuned!!!

All studio portraits photographed by Emily Teague. Makeup by Alicia D’Angelo. Challah hat skeleton created by Lisa Shoub, and challah consultation by the Compleat Sculptor. Embroidery design help by Camila Carini Argerrich, and embroidery fabrication by New York Embroidery Studio. Dress construction by Flatiron Tailor Shop. Palanquin fabrication by Leerform.