CHOEPHORAE- The Making of the Sand Painting
Video Document, Portrait of Agamemnon, 2006

Ms. Rogers’ original design for the CHOEPHORAE sand painting was created while in residence at Artist Alliance, Inc. in New York City, & at the Anotati Scholi Kalon Technon in Athens, Greece, spring 2006.

Created as a site-specific installation for a theatrical production, CHOEPHORAE – The Making of the Sand Painting documents the making of a large-scale sand portrait of Agamemnon.  The play, a modern production of Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers, (“Choephorae” in ancient Greek), is an international collaboration between a U.S and Greek company, which opened the Patras Festival in Patras, Greece, the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2006. 

Commissioned as the set designer for the all female production, Ms. Rogers’ design incorporated a sand painting which filled the entire stage at 32 ft x 24 ft and required 700 lbs of sand per performance to complete.  In addition, her set design included 6 mirrors, each 12 ft x 4 ft, hung together as one huge mirror at the back of the stage so the painting could be viewed from two planes.

In CHOEPHORAE, the funeral act of pouring libations, historically enacted by slaves forced into ritual mourning for their master, is recast as a ritual act of art making, completed in real time in order to raise the spirit of the dead King.  The painting, a collaboration between Ms. Rogers and a female team of 12 Greek visual artists*, was recreated each night during the play’s first act by the Greek painters in performance and then systematically destroyed by the Greek actors throughout the play’s second act.

A time-based artist, Jenny approaches works in sand the same way she approaches her film, video and theatrical work.  All are installations in time and space, whether her medium is a grain of sand, a grain of film or a pixel of video.  All are located at the intersection between art making and the performance of community, where at inception and reception both depend on ritual activities to give them life. 

Experimental filmmaker Maya Deren, defined ritual as “an action distinguished from all others in that it seeks the realization of its purpose through the exercise of form.”  Ms. Rogers’ sand paintings seek to articulate their metaphors through the method and form of their creation.  Specifically found in ceremonial sand paintings, mark making in the earth here sanctifies space giving it theatrical life.

*Greek Visual Artists / Sand Painters: Talin Apkarian, Irini Bazara, Anezina Blazogiannaki, Anastasia Boudouri, Maguerite Caillaux, Ellie Froudaraki, Stavroula Koutrou, Katerina Lambrou, Joanna Larouni, Eleanna Martinou, Alexandra Stravoravdi & Giota Tsoka

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