The Unwritten History Project Detail Record

Detail Record for Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Event Title: Mikva
Series Title: Artists Reading
Location: Franklin Furnace
Date: 1/11/1977 -
Event Type: Performance

Event Documentation:

Mikva	Mikva

Artist Statement: MAINTENANCE ART WORKS MIERLE LADERMAN UKELES MIKVA DREAMS ã1977 MIKVA DREAMS - The following definition of Mikva is paraphrased from Rachel Adler. Mikva is a water immersion place. Both men and women use the Mikva - but differently. It is referred to in the Bible as "Mayim Chayim" meaning living waters. Running water, not stagnant water. Any natural gathering of running water of requisite amount constitutes a natural Mikva: lakes, rivers, seas. In olden days, women would immerse themselves monthly in rivers even in the winter by cutting a hole in the ice. In cities, the Mikva is built using an approximation of natural water, that is water collected through the force of gravity, usually rainwater. The rainwater is gathered into a huge container called the bor or pit. A building is constructed around this bor. The building contains small individual sunken pools for private immersion. Each pool shares a wall with the bor. Each shared wall has a hole cut in it which can be plugged up or left open. In order to make the adjoining pools into legally valid Makaot, they are "seeded" with bor water and then filled with reguar heated tap water. When the hole between this pool and the bor is unplugged so that the waters are touching (or as the sources put it "kissing") the pool becomes a valid Vikva. (The artist unfolds a white sheet, places it over her head, covering herself completely, and continues the reading.) In all the gentleness of continuing love, she goes to the Mikva. The Mikva waters hit above her breasts when she is standing up. The waters have pressure in them. She pushes into it as she comes down the steps. When she leaves, it seems as if the waters softly bulge her out/back to the world. No, she doesn't want to tell you about it. It is a secret between her love and herself. The Mikvah is square. The water is warm -- body temperature. Sometimes there are layers of cool water at the bottom. A square womb of living waters. She goes in -- naked -- all dead edges removed -- edges and surfaces that have come in contact with the world. Nails, loose hair. She has scrubbed herself. All foreign matter removed: a discipline. Is it possible to cleanse oneself completely? What if she looked into a microscope? Would she find foreign matter? The standard is for the world of the naked eye. The Mikva is for her intrinsic self. Her self-self. Nothing else: no traffic with the world: no make-up with the world. The blood stopped flowing a week ago. She is the moon. The blood carried away the nest for an unfertilized egg. Her body gets ready every month -- builds a nest come hell or high water. If the egg isn't caught and doesn't catch, the nest unravels bit by bit, and the body gets rid of it. Shucks it. A non-life has occurred. Shall she call it a death? She won't because of sister-friends who have had abortions for a million sorrowing reasons. What's one egg? She can't bear that many children. Overpopulation, desires for limits, human endurance, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Money, education, other kinds of life-giving to do. But it is an event of non-life. An egg's funeral. A formal procession in measured amounts of time -- not rushed; so and so number of days. Men don't bleed regularly. That's a simple fact. If they bleed, something is wrong. Women do. It's not an androgynous fact. Much as the artist loves androgynous facts. It is a separating fact. Also children. Only women bleed regularly. Regularly they are involved in either new life or non-life. The Mikva separates one from the other. In all the glory of continuing love, the Mikva is a taste of heaven. She tumbles down into the water, like a fetus, and is reborn to life. Old surfaces gone, non-life gone. Life is holy, to be understood as holy and separated from death, from dead parts. She is always holy -- but she causes a separation to be made between life and non-life. Choose life G-D tells her and she does. If heaven is the home of eternal life, in all the caring of continuing love, the Mikva is a room in heaven. This is what heaven is like, she thought. How outrageous. This? A bathtub -- tiles -- steps -- a light. What did she expect? The shomeret, the guardian, is this heaven's angel. A real angel who maintains the balance between this secret place and outside: mysterious, telling no tales. The shomeret's job is to watch. To see that no foreign bodies, no detached hairs, no dirt is on her. That she has 20 new edges on her 20 tips -- nails and toes -- that meet the world, that grow and die always. Mostly, the shomeret watches silently that all of her is withdrawn into the water -- nothing sticks out when she contracts back into the womb of warm waters. Every part must go into the waters or it's not "kasher." "Kasher" means "O.K.," "proper." The girl-woman-life-bearer, who has passed through a time of non-life, enters wholly into the living waters one time. "Kasher" says the shomeret. She praises G-D, life-death maintainer, who was-is-will be forever. Twice more she enters inside the waters. She sees her fingers through the waters, spreads her limbs; the waters press against her openings; she opens herself to the waters. "Kasher" says the shomeret. Then she is reborn. The living waters return her to life alone. Her cells begin to die again immediately. Her womb begins it blood-nest again. Foreign matter makes contact and sticks to her silently -- right away. But she has a chance to start again. She moves into another time period. Month to month, how many months, how many contacts does the girl-woman have on this bridge between herself alone and the future? Say she starts menses at 13 and reaches menopause at 48. That's 35 years of possible fertilization x 12 months/year - 420 eggs she grows within her. Say she gets married at 28 and goes to the Mikva from that time on. That gives her 20 Mikva-going years x 12 months/years or 240 times to go to the Mikva. Say she has 1, 2, 3 children. That means 27 months of no menses -- round off to 30 months "off" because of afterbirth bleeding. That means roughly 210 times to go tot the Mikva during her life; 210 times to se[arate from events of non-life in her life. 210 times to immerse, to go down into, be swallowed by the people's womb of living waters, to come back to life just like her people's women have done for so many thousands of years. In all the maintenance of continuing love, her own specific, particular kind of moon-blood body in nature dies in those waters and is born again. And immerse again. [Spoken while inhaling and exhaling: no pauses for breath] Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. 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Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Immerse again. Please dear G-D.

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