“an accounting”

Artist in Residence Elizabeth Katt will be working at Constellation Studios this summer to continue her performance/action, “an accounting” begun in 2020.  By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. The piece’s significance is apparent as heaps of adding machine tape attest to COVID-19’s toll.   Since starting the piece Katt’s silent labor has used 43 rolls of tape and will be continuing as she aims to document losses to date. Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 615,679 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable death.

Katt will be at the studio 1-5 each Tuesday and Thursday, June 22 – end of July.

Katt is a current MFA graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, and she received her BFA from the UNL School of Art, Art History & Design in 2016.