Between the Living and the Dead

Video by Amy Bassin and Mark Blickley

“Speaking in Bootongue” represents the visual and aural language used between the cities of the living and the cities of the dead.

Traditionally, the image of an empty boot denotes the loss of an esteemed leader. In Bootongue, the empty boot is a metaphor for traveling between these worlds of reality and extinction where individual sovereignty often surrenders to a metaphysical sphere of fantasy. This journey can lead to a hyperactive life of pure thought invisible to all but the participant. We consider it a gift that arrives towards the end of one’s life that grants an individual the time—free of corporeal distraction—to jettison the physical world in favor of a distinctive world built entirely upon imagination and memory; a terrible beauty rooted in fear, humor, and wonderment.

New York fine arts photographer Amy Bassin and writer Mark Blickley work together on text-based art collaborations and videos. Their-text based art collaboration, Dream Streams, was featured as an art installation at the 5th Annual NYC Poetry Festival. They recently published a text-based art chapbook,Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes From the Underground (Moria Books, Chicago). The publisher has sent their resistance book to the White House and members of Congress. Bassin is co-founder of the international artists cooperative, Urban Dialogues. Blickley is the author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press) and proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center.