On Sunday, July 18th artist Savannah Knoop will be joined by ritualist Elana June Margolis to mark the physical and spiritual closing of Knoop’s exhibition Soothing the Seams at the Bell. Margolis will situate this ritual within the heart-map provided by the Jewish calendar: July 18th, 2021 is also the 9th of the month of Av in the year 5781 AKA Tisha b'Av, a day set aside to honor the collective broken heart through grief ritual. Participants are encouraged to bring a candle, some fabric to rip/tear, a bowl of water, paper, and something to write with.

While acknowledging that the pandemic is ongoing, this collective ritual marks the official end date of the exhibition and allows for closure to Knoop’s process and by extension acknowledges the trauma, challenges, and other closures that the pandemic has brought into all of our lives. Participants will be invited both to witness and to step into active, intimate engagement with multiple grief technologies, creating space for personal healing towards collective liberation.

Elana June Margolis is a Queer Jewish teacher, writer, ritualist and performing artist. Her life's work is dedicated to liberating texts and ritual/pedagogical technologies towards access, relevance, and healing in service of collective liberation. Elana June has been making and playing with Knoop for fifteen years; she is honored and excited to continue the antics and plunge the depths with her beloved co-conspirator.

Savannah Knoop is an artist and educator working in film, sculpture, writing, and performance. They have exhibited and performed at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Movement Research, and Leslie Lohman Museum, New York. Their solo exhibition Savannah Knoop: Soothing the Seams closes at the Bell Gallery at Brown University on July 18th.

Register HERE to attend this virtual event live.