Performance: A Crib for Sarah by Fina Ferrara
- May 11
- 3 min read
A Crib for Sarah was a performance about the trauma of going through abortion. Performed by Fina Ferrara, the lucid experience engages in several acts through ‘dances of sorrow’. In evocative dance, Fina descends down a staircase and greets a makeshift shrine to her lost never-born child, complete with a physical portrait. She mourns and silently wails throughout the house she acts in. The performance was inspired by a real abortion experienced by the artist, only to suffer grief two years after the act rather than during the instance. Thanatologists call this delayed suffering a “silent grief”, because society has trained us to withdraw a natural feeling of sorrow towards an abortion due to the fact the child was never legally a person, except in the case of a murder of a pregnant woman, which can count as two homicides.
The grand opus of the act is during the middle of the performance when Fina dances to the song Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley, dancing in sorrow into the arms of her former partner. He proceeds to hold Fina and prevent her from falling and briefly places his hands on her stomach as if to summon an unborn child from her womb or to express anguish. Towards the end of the performance, Fina evocatively motions in an inflatable swimming pool inside the interior of the house, to signify the recreation of home child birth. At the end of the performance, two men shared how they they had also grieved from experiencing abortions with their partners, so the subject is not solely exclusive to women.
What A Crib for Sarah conveys would be how loss is not confined just to a ‘living’ death, but can also be experienced from losing an unborn person, someone you never get a chance to meet. As a result, this experience can be a reflection of not only loss of life, but also an act of infertility, whether induced by purpose or not. The performance seems to convey the act of abortion is not as ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ as we have been led to believe by society. However, in an age where cost of living is out of control and social inequality, sometimes having a child is a detriment to one’s own sustainability in life, as not everyone is fit to be a parent. Still, the act of abortion and infertility affects the human psyche in a genuine way which is poignantly communicated conceptually in the performance by Fina Ferrara.
The weaving of the ‘dance of sorrow’ as Fina seems to almost crawl in a state of almost skeletal loss, as if she is unable to control her limbs. These motions portray the frustration of losing an entity from a woman’s body, a cherished soul which was not initially recognized. From descending a staircase to slithering into the arms of her former lover under the atmosphere of Elvis Presley, we are engaged in a dream-like sequence of profound pain and grief. The sheer horror of the performance reflects sadness but also beauty and a form of contemporary ballet in the subtle dances evolving throughout the house until finally descending into the pool of water.
A conceptual communication on a topic usually regarded as too politically hot to touch, Fina Ferrara’s performance is not so much an expression of the Pro-Life movement, but rather conveying the consequences of one’s decision, especially regarding autonomy and a woman’s body as well as issues pertaining to women’s health. A decision is never really just a decision, we all experience profound impact from our actions, whether we realize so or not. Fina Ferra’s performance of A Crib for Sarah has us understand life is more than just moving along with a carefree attitude as our notions of freedom is bound by our consequences.
Finally, we should note the integrative installation pieces within the performance, such as an empty crib complete with makeshift gravestones and ‘R.I.P.’ carved into the base board, which expresses the loss of losing a ‘person’ you never ever met. The installation of a frozen pig’s heart slowing dripping ice water onto a drum represents the ritualistic mantra of sorrow. A conceptual conveyance of morbidity and extreme horror. An aged analogue video screen plays another performance of Fina freezing herself embracing a frozen pig’s heart. She literally suffers in the piece in order to release her tension. The last installation piece of a contraption holding a ‘web’ of women health products seems to accentuate women’s issues into the forefront of conceptual contemporary art. By combining installation art with performance, the visual message of the acts gain increased traction to conceptually maximizing the feeling of exceptional loss, whether directly or indirectly. The abortion is used as a symbol of being unable to control our own sense of stability.
