The artist describes 27 Hour Cargo Piece as a work about endurance. In the artist’s telling, “It’s based on the story of Henry “Box” Brown, an enslaved man who mailed himself to freedom. 5’8” and 200 lbs., he endured and survived a 27-hour trip, being moved from various forms of transportation in a 2’ x 3’ x 2 1/2’ crate. He did this with a few biscuits and a bladder of water, often upside down and while keeping quiet enough as to not be detected. I titled it because enslaved peoples were often referred to as cargo and I was thinking of Brown’s achievement in relation to the endurance piece in performance art as a way that we might wrap our heads around what he did. Chris Burden’s Five Day Locker piece, 1971, came to mind, because we often think about it as so extreme, perhaps performance comes as close as we can imagine to experiences of the body. Putting these feats in contrast is about thinking about Brown’s achievement in the present. Even more, Brown as a freedman goes on to be a performer creating a showcase around his unbelievable journey. The intersection of art and life is profound here, but so are Brown’s movements and will to find a way.”