Punching A Pillow Until the Sun Rises

2017

Staged within the hidden confines of a private hotel room, Milton masquerades as a hysterical diva caught in a tragic-comic cycle of perpetual destruction. Originally made available for public viewing through live-streamed video at the Gladstone hotel in Toronto, this endurance-based performance twists the supposedly cathartic exercise of punching a pillow into a bawdy spectacle of amateur magic, drag and melodrama. As Milton rips the seams of each pillow, clusters of feather boas are revealed, initiating a raucous cycle of transformation performed in the dark hours between sunset and sunrise. Through twelve-hours of improvised character play, Milton tears through varied performance registers that reference film noir, confessional culture and voyeurism while remaining tangled in a mess of camp theatricality and novelty store glamour.

Four Channel Video Installation, Performance
03:00:00

Exhibited
Nuit Blanche Toronto 2017, Curated by Shannon Linde & Asad Raza
Fly by Night, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Curated by Lukus Toane
Feathers, Ether, Sand, Speech, Access Gallery, Curated by Whitney Brennan