Alise Anderson often makes work from their family’s extensive archives, using humor and absurdity to explore issues of religion, family dynamics and domesticity. Their latest work focuses on Penny, the family's donkey and her unfortunate fate.
Framed along side the piece are excerpts from "These Are My Mountains", a memoir written by Melvin White, Anderson's grandfather. The texts describe his time with Penny and her staring roll in thefamily's history.The day of Penny’s death coincides with a larger historical moment,and is what initially drew the artist to this project. The work began as atribute to her, and grew outward into questions about memory,symbolism, and how personal stories quietly collide with political ones.
The overlap between a private loss and a national rupture lingersquietly in the background. The donkey, as an image, carries its ownpolitical weight.Like much of their broader practice, Anderson is interested inAmerican symbols by filtering them with their family history and ownlife experience as a queer identifying artist. It asks what happens whennational imagery is carried by something as unassuming as a family donkey.