Lilit

As part of Armory Off-Site, Dreamsong presents Tamar Ettun’s LILIT, an immersive installation and performance in Bella Abzug Park, across the street from the Javits Center (34th Street btw 10th & 11th, NYC). Join us for performances Friday 9/8 at 11AM
and Saturday 9/9 at 5pm. You are also welcome to visit Lilit anytime while the installation is on view on Friday 11AM – 2PM and Saturday 5-7PM.

Lilit is an aerial spirit demon with origins in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology. In the 2nd to 7th centuries, artist-healers created spells, drawings, and talismanic objects to trap demons like Lilit, who was characterized as a dangerously sexual female entity, and appeared frequently on incantation bowls used in protective rituals. Enthralled by the images inscribed on these ancient objects, Ettun studied their vocabulary and developed her own language that revives the tradition through a contemporary feminist lens, subverting Lilit’s misogynistic archetype and revamping her image as an Empathic Demon.

The Wave Caves (2022-2023), an immersive installation in Bella Abzug Park, creates a safe haven for Lilit, who was banished for pursuing independence. These monumental works, constructed of painted, hand-dyed and stitched boat sails, reference the medieval myth in which Lilit escapes to the Red Sea.

In two performances, Tamar Ettun will conjure and inhabit the persona of Lilit. She will share her origin story from a feminist perspective and invite the audience to participate in somatic movement exercises designed to connect with their bodies and befriend their inner demons.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Tamar Ettun (b. Jerusalem, Israel, 1982) is a New York-based artist who works with textile, sculpture, and performance to reflect on somatic empathy, trauma-healing modalities, and ritual. She has an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University and has exhibited and performed at The Walker Art Center, The Shelburne Museum, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, The Chinati Foundation, Pioneer Works, The Watermill Center, Art Omi Sculpture Garden, PERFORMA, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Sculpture Center. Ettun is the recipient of awards and fellowships from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, Interlude Artist Residency, BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange), Fountainhead, Moca Tucson, Stoneleaf Retreat, MacDowell Fellowship, Franklin Furnace, Iaspis, Art Production Fund, and RECESS among others.

Amongst other long term projects, Ettun’s multidisciplinary work Lilit the Empathic Demon explores the insidious side of empathy, empathy fatigue, trauma-healing modalities, and astrology as storytelling. As part of Ettun’s ongoing project, occasional messages from the Empathic Demon are available to anyone who texts “SUMMON” to 833-575-1049. Developed while the artist was isolated at home in Brooklyn in the early days of the pandemic, Ettun continues to send text messages and images in conjunction with astrological events to subscribers.