Marriage, Divorce, and Re-establishing Self.

The action of divorce results in a journey where one is left forced to re-establish oneself. In the piece, the journey of divorce is represented through the slow melting of the candles formed from molds based on 3D models of the Carpenter Center and the Morgan Library and Museum. At first, the two buildings are joined together as one, representing marriage. The buildings dangle precariously from a wire, representing the precarious nature of marriage itself. After the joint candle is lit, the buildings begin to melt and, as they melt, the marriage begins to fall apart. The candle of the co-joined buildings melt above their two individual casts: one of the Carpenter Center and the other of the Morgan Library and Museum. The casts can be seen as the origin of the two partners that were conceived individually, but later joined together in marriage. The individual casts must use the dripping wax from the joint building to rebuild themselves as individuals. Since the wax comes from the co-joined buildings, it reveals that the rebuilt self--which will never be full--will always include some of the other. In order to re-establish the self, one must use one’s past self and experiences, the past self being inextricably linked to the other in a marriage. The journey is not always predictable. I convey this unpredictability in my videos which show three different melting episodes.

Through the final products of the demonstration, I show that the journey of re-establishing the self after divorce is unpredictable. Even as one becomes an individual again, the impact of the marriage melted by divorce will always be a part of both individuals. This broken and incomplete nature of the self is conveyed through the half casted candles and the broken pieces left along the way through the process of melting the buildings and dissolving the marriage.