A significant turning point in my work was in 2014, when I crossed paths with a mother who lost her son in a tragic disaster. When I held her hand, I experienced a strong experience of empathy. Unbeknownst to me, through the brief yet visceral connection with this mother, I felt an authenticity I hadn't experienced before. After this encounter, I was inspired to use the body as a medium of communication between myself and my audience. In my work, I leverage the conductive properties of the human body as the main vehicle for stimuli. Inspired by both the common definition of empathy, which is to put yourself in one's shoes, and the words of God to Moses in Exodus, "take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” [Exodus 3:5], I used the literal definition of empathy in my performance. I asked my audience to take off their own shoes and to then step into shoes which had been reformed to conduct a flow of electricity with technical programming. I programmed software which allowed light to come forth when two people touched while wearing the shoes. These shoes were once worn by various people whose suffering was often ignored by others in their life, and one pair belonged to the mother who had lost her son. I entitled this piece "Empathy"
