Performing Mourning: Laments in Contemporary Art in Bloomington, MN

The pandemic has once again made us more aware of the fragility of life and the importance of being able to properly mourn the dead. Dramaturg Guy Cools has been researching laments and other rituals of mourning. The laments are a formal device, used in many cultures to express and contain the emotions of grief. In a personal way Cools explores cultural habits, traditions, rituals, and artists' performances. His narrative looks into many forms of laments: literary, anthropological, philosophical, and in contemporary art practices. The latter part delves into artistic strategies to address or embody mourning and how they deal with different kind of losses, including the very recent phenomenon of lamenting not just the losses of the past, but also the loss of a future.