SOLO Exhibition Catharine Clark

SOLO Exhibition The Armory Show

Space blankets, also known as emergency blankets, were first developed by NASA in 1964. The highly reflective insulators are often included in emergency kits. 

It isolates your heat inside, not allowing any warmth or your breath to transmit across it. 

Even though NASA invented them for outer space, they have now become the symbol of immigration; used at border detention camps between US / Mexico, as well across the Mediterranean by “illegal aliens”. The Space Between Us is part of the intervention created at the Mexico/US border using these space blankets addressing that families are still separated. Using Magritte’s The Lovers, in real contemporary space & time. During the performance I began to sweat inside the blanket, unable to feel my lover’s breath, even though he was right in front of me. I would inhale & the blanket would press up against my face, suffocating & completely isolating me. My space was contained, no breath, no warmth shared between us.

I also suspended 50 space blankets across laundry lines on the sand at the beach in front of the border wall.

During the Obama administration society became aware of the violence & hostility in the language being used & actively changes how we refer to migrants as Undocumented. Now, the president, in bullying & hateful fashion has brought back rhetoric that belittles & condemns individuals attempting to seek asylum. Calling everyone illegal aliens.

This is a country of natives & Undocumented Migrants that have poured in over 200 years ago, often forgetting who were here before us & forgetting to trace where they came from.