Temporary Monument #4: O Enforcado - a photographic installation, 2015

Acrylic photo print on aluminium dibond backing, framed in wood and plywood frame with magnets.

I’m looking for a burnt rice field with a beautiful, strange, stand-alone tree. I find an endless one with the tree which is half-green, half-dry. I tie myself to the tree by connecting my right ankle to one of the branches with a rope and hang myself with my head pointing down. Hanging like this for a long time is unbearable pain. Every few minutes, I switch the ankles and hang myself down again. Slaves used to survive over 24 hours hanging like this and sometimes received a pardon. Odin, the Scandinavian god, was known to hang for 9 days and 9 nights with his head pointing down from the sacred tree, also half-green and half-dry, to get initiated into the wisdom of runes. And then there is another symbol, the Hanged Man of the Tarot Cards. He is one of the most important symbols in the deck and belongs to the Major Arcana: ‘The Hanged Man shows a man suspended, upside-down, from the living World Tree, rooted in the underworld and supporting the heavens”. This is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of martyrdom and sacrifice to the greater good. Performance is over once my feet are black and blue.

• Limited Edition of 3 + 2 AP (Museum Edition), 2015: 97,5 x 38,6 x 4,1cm (open), 72,4 x 38,6 x 8,2cm (closed)

• Limited Edition of 5 + 2 AP, 2015: 236,9 x 94 x 4,1cm(open), 177,8 x 94 x 8,2cm(closed)

• Limited Edition of 15 + 2 AP, 2015: 144,8 x 57,5 x 4,1cm (open), 108,3 x 57,5 x 8,2cm (closed)

To get the link and the password to the full video, please contact our studio at: studio@fyodorpavlovandreevich.com