Further explore the exhibition’s theme of semi-visibility through a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Disremembered X" is a work created by Doris Salcedo in 2020 and 2021, inspired by her conversations with American mothers who lost their children to gun violence. There are four pieces in this installation, resembling ghostly shrouds. The dimensions vary, but each is about the size of an open, waist-length, loose-fitting garment with quarter-length sleeves.

At first glance they appear to be gauzy hanging fabric with a herringbone pattern, draped at various angles against a stark white wall. Some hang from both shoulders, as if supported by an invisible hanger, or from one point along the neckline, as if thrown over a coat hook. They are indeed created from raw silk, so delicate they are almost invisible, like the echoes of a person no longer present.

The pattern and outline of these shrouds is created by hundreds of small sewing needles incorporated into the silk thread, weaving and affixed together with the nearly invisible silk thread. In areas along the bottom edge and neckline, the needles are gathered more tightly, creating depth and the illusion of folds in fabric. The careful accumulation of needles builds a visual mask evoking pain and loss. The same way these shrouds outline the absence of a person, the victims are actively disremembered by society—a past that continues to haunt the present.

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