The Bag Lady Manifesta

Taja Lindley

Habits. Relationships. Belief Systems. Memories– our histories walk among us. And to ignore them is to be haunted by them. Taja Lindley’s The Bag Lady Manifesta is an immersive, participatory experience filled with striking visuals and dynamic movement.

With this work, audiences are invited to (re)consider what to let go of, and what to remember. The Bag Lady is a living Sankofa, of movement, song, theater, and ritual — with the intention to build a collective memory and to create a just future for all.

Moved by the non-indictments of the police officers responsible for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, this performance and installation series draws parallels between discarded materials and the violent treatment of Black people in the United States. Through this, Lindley re-purposes trash bags to re-member, honor and value the Black lives we have lost due to police violence. In this post-Ferguson moment, Lindley is imagining how to recycle the energy of protest, rage, and grief into creating a world where, indeed, Black lives matter. Her accompanying installation, “Re-membering is the Responsibility of the Living,” will be on exhibition at the Carver Museum from March 7, 2019 – July 31, 2019.

From Fusebox Taja Lindley’s performance The Bag Lady Manifesta — which accompanies her exhibition RE-MEMBERING IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LIVING — is a communal ritual drawing on the materiality of garbage bags and the primordial figure of The Bag Lady  to talk about the ways Black life has been discarded and mistreated in the United States. Lindley’s performance asks how these traumas and memories can be confronted and transformed, to allow space for individual and collective healing.