In the early months of the pandemic, a local Instagram feed riveted the art community’s attention: the @CenterForPostCapitalistHistory. In nightly updates, Florida’s ever-rising COVID numbers were read aloud, interlaced with deadpan observations on positive thinking and Florida’s “open for business” mentality. This was the project of Orlando artist Leah Sandler.
Sandler says watching the creeping death toll on the Health Department’s COVID-19 dashboard felt like quote, “living through a dystopian horror movie.”
The CPCH has been an ongoing project for Sandler since 2015, existing in many mediums but with a consistent focus: the human cost of capitalism and a world ravaged by climate change.
Sandler recently gathered text, illustrations and photos into a book that reads like an instructional manual for our fraught times. In her “Field Guide to Embodied Archiving,” published by Central Florida’s Burrow Press, she explores the idea of the physical self as an archive, a literal body of evidence.
The official launch party for the book is Saturday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m., a free outdoor event at the Nook on Robinson in Orlando. Sandler will show video and do a “performative reading” from the text. Find more information at burrowpress.com.
Story and interview at OrlandoWeekly.com.
