FISH BOX
This is Fish Box, a functional, fish-shaped spice box series I created for the exhibition The Box, at the Luce Center for Arts and Religion in D.C. For this show, the artist Anne Mourier and I each made new pieces inspired by / in conversation with the other artist’s professional practice and faith background. The fish shape here references the symbolic use of fish in both Catholicism (Anne’s faith of origin) and Judaism, and the rhetorical connections often made between fish and female sexual organs.
Inside each fish box sits a broken off shard from a clay vessel, doused with a special perfume inspired by both the Havdalah ceremony and Jesus’ life, designed specifically for The Box, by Anne and me. Mystical forms of Jewish practice teach that the earth’s creation involved shattered clay vessels, and the perfumed shards here reference that origin story.
Exhibition visitors were encouraged to lean down, place their noses inside the fish’s mouth cavity, and deeply inhale the aroma.
Fish fabrication help from Leerform.