Human Shredder Ritual


The artist Jenny Suhonen has a video documenting her burial ritual of other people’s burdens. She collected people’s burdens via letters, which she gathered through a letter box installed in public. Then she cubed them with pink goo. Finally, she buried them in a forest in Stockholm.

Burial of burden-letters in Supermarket Independent Art Fair 24.4.2016, Stockholm  I was collecting and breaking them into a cube for 4 days, all together 8.5 hours. Some of the letters were brought from Finland. The last day I did a burial-ritual in the woods. About 25 burdens were put down to low-lands.

Her ritual protocol was as follows:

In the fair I am collecting people’s burdens as letters. I have installed my green letterbox to the wall with papers and pens for visitors to use.

In the installation is also a wooden stick found from the near-by forest to Black House in Telefonplan and a glass jar with pink goo.

The 4-day performance culminates to a burial of the burden-letter cube into the near-by forest (video).

I am building a cube of burden-letters:

  1. read letter soundlessly
  2. cut all words separately, mix them (several letters can be mixed together = desirably)
  3. drop goo on your palm with the stick
  4. take one word at a time, read it aloud, goo it in your palm and stick it to the cube
  5. repeat the act
  6. when all words have been read and good take goo with the stick and drop it all slowly on top of the cube.

Here is another video of her space and materials for the ritual.


Source: The site performance / ritual | Jenny Suhonen = HUMANSHREDDERSee more there of Suhonen’s work.

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