Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word

Synopsis

This video by Coco Fusco includes footage of the artist traveling by boat around Hart Island, the site of New York’s public cemetery that was operated by the city’s department of corrections until October 1, 2021. Since 1869, prison labor has been used to bury more than a million New Yorkers in mass graves on the island. Many individuals have been buried anonymously—especially during epidemics. Fusco’s video features a meditation she wrote on the conditions of the current pandemic and is performed by poet Pamela Sneed.