Lani Burshtein
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In explores my fascination with confinement and the confined person's means of psychological escape. My aim is to recreate the anxious back-and-forth tension between imprisonment and freedom. Whether trapped in your own body by illness or paralysis, imprisoned by the police or kidnappers, in hiding for your own protection, or self-confined for spiritual purposes, this sense of claustrophobia and immobility is rich with both suffering and imaginative possibilities. The fantasies concocted by those in confinement represent the extremes of freedom, from flying through outer space to gaining extraordinary magical powers. The prisoner is an archetype familiar to everyone, and is represented in fairy tales and myths going back thousands of years; almost everyone has experienced the sense of being metaphorically trapped, unable to escape their social position, their responsibilities and fixed identity. The creative, generative powers of imagination are a source of hope, but ultimately reference the imaginer's confinement, anchoring these utopian fantasies in a real sense of despair.
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In
Installation view at Northern Contemporary
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Prison
Drypoint with chine colle and woodcut14 x 12 x 11 6/8 inchesPrison was inspired by Shaker Aamer, a man held in Guantanamo Bay for several years without charges. In an interview, Amer explained how the Harry Potter books were the most popular in the Guantanamo Bay library. He especially enjoyed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban because he related to the wrongfully imprisoned character Sirius Black. Aamer also compared Guantanamo Bay to the soul-sucking Dementors int he story, saying, "They got an island in Harry Potter, it says ‘Azkaban’. Where there’s no happiness and they just suck all your feelings out of you, and you don’t have no feelings any more. And truly that’s how I felt all the time."
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Tower
Cut paper, acrylic, LED lights and Eska board10 6/8 x 7 6/8 x 8 3/8 inches2017Tower explores the roots of fiction's captivity obsession by examining the fairytale confinements of Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin's captive. -
Tower, installation view at OCAD University
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Tower, detail.
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Anchor/Hold
Woodcut and chine colle on cut paper8 x 12 x 12 inches2017
In the medieval era, an anchorhold was a small cell attached to the side of a church which a holy man or woman (but usually a woman) would confine themselves to for either a defined period of time or for the rest of their lives, spending their time in prayer and contemplation. The doors to the anchorhold were nailed shut; a maid would service the anchoress, bringing food and taking away refuse. The famous English anchoress Julian of Norwich wrote a religious text after experiencing several "divine visions," wherein she called Jesus Christ a maternal figure because, through his physical suffering, he gave eternal life to sinners. The connection between motherhood, pregnancy and confinement also extends to the historical practise of enclosure and lying-in; a pregnant woman would sequester herself in a bedroom for several months before giving birth, as well as after, in order to tend to the baby. Anchor/Hold examines the connections between the confinement of the fetus, the mother and the medieval anchoresses. -
Methods of Flight
Drypoint and letter press on paper and faux-leather with laser-printed folio
2 7/8 by 4 inches
2017
Methods of Flight is a series of artist's multiples that function as a kit for emotional and intellectual escape through fantasy. The kit is for anyone who ever feels "trapped" physically or metaphorically. A key to understanding the items depicted inside the suitcase is provided in the folio.
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Methods of Fight, installation view at Northern Contemporary
