DATURA
“Traumatism as an opening to the future of the wound is the promise of a
text.” (Cixous, 1998, p13)
In medical terms, we speak of dehiscence when there is a partial
or complete reopening of a wound’s edges due to improper healing.
Dehiscence can occur internally or externally and can be caused by
multiple factors such as inadequate aseptic techniques, inadequate
undermining of the wound, infection, smoking, a strain or heavy lifting.
In botany, dehiscence describes the spontaneous opening at maturity of a
plant’s anther to release its content. The shattering of pod shells frees
pollen and seeds, assuring the reproduction of the plant. When the
datura’s thorny pod cracks open, it reveals dark bluish seeds around a
central kernel. It opens in a way that would be impossible to suture
back, agape so wide it would remind you of butterfly wings or a
blooming onion.
There are wounds that do not heal: chronic wounds. These either
reopen or remain painfully swollen for months on end. An open wound
is subject to infection: bacteria colonizes the opening, interfering with
the skin’s ability to heal. Bacteria is always found in chronic ulcers. In its
spread, it is as if it claims ownership on time. The wound remains
visible, painful.
The flowers bloom at night, around sunset. Daturas mostly grow in a
warm, sunny climate, reseeding themselves to the point of invasion. In
the Americas, they can be found from the east to the west, thriving in
harsh soils, landfills and jungles alike.
In Youngstown, one of us slices his shin open, close to the ankle, a
wound too deep not to suture. In Stigmata, Cixous writes of writing as
conjuring - maintaining and reanimating traces. One of the central
stories deconstructed in the book, is a childhood memory of being bit
by her dog. A bite that occurred shortly after the passing of her father
and that left a unique scar on her foot. Her scar: an awful treasure, a proof,
a testimony, a transfiguration. The shin-wound reopened, twice. As if
attempting to halt time, but instead confirming the probability of a scar,
the indelible confirmation of our time spent there. Stigma from stigmè:
the point, the spike or the punctuality of the instant, an incessant sting.
Youngstown: a name which in itself implies a neverland of sorts, or
time halted. Every town surely has its ghosts. But in some they feel
more present than in others.
Again, in botany, stigma a part of the pistil, where the male pollen
germinates. “In its cavity resurrection is hatched. What is dead and
what will live share the same bed. Tomb-cradle: another definition of
Stigma.” (Cixous, 13)
There are up to 14 varieties of daturas, all equally frightening and
alluring. The leaves and essence have been used for their medicinal
properties since pre-antiquity. In the indigenous communities of Asia
and South America, datura healed pain and anxieties and was used in
specific shamanistic rituals or rites of passage. Records from the 17 and
1800s, describe its use for soothing pain topically, healing burns or
wounds or as a sleeping aid. The datura is deadly. Accounts of
hallucinations caused by the plant seem to have similar throughlines -
black dogs, being one of them. Visions are said to linger way past the
time of intoxication: apparitions of silhouettes or faces lurk in the back
of one's eyes for months before permanently fading away. The flower’s
parapsychological properties are believed to be occultist. The datura
will command respect and make its power known. There are accounts
of subjects feeling intoxicated solely from its scent. To assuage the
flower’s fury one should either provide an act of service towards the
plant or partake in an act of sacrifice.
I do not know for certain what each of us traded for the plant, some
heard her commanding voice, others didn’t mention as much. One
thing is for sure many a drink was spilled over in her honor, libations
poured back into the earth between emptied bullet shells, rocks, broken
glass and wet paper. I have always been seduced by the idea that the
dead receive the wine poured into the ground –that it somehow carries
through. None of us had foreseen the changes that were brought forth
by our time there. The grief that would hit some of us, the alterations in
our work, the coincidences, the openings, the revelations we all seemed
to feel simultaneously.
If you’d ask some of us, why the flower - we’d tell you she seemed to
have picked us first.
Datura is a group exhibition which took place at 100 N Prospect in
Youngstown (Ohio) and is a culmination of a 12 day artist residency,
coordinated by Marie Ségolène C Brault and Rocco Sait.
Exhibition Text by Marie Ségolène C Brault
Artists
Alex Patrick Dyck, Ariane Gagné, Cléo Sjölander,
Dylan Weaver, Jason Van Hoose, Julien Parant-Marquis,
Justin Apperley, Paul Jackson Burgess, Tom Roeschlein