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∑ is a sculpture made from the artist’s father’s belongings.

 Σ (Sigma), is the mathematical notation for summation, recognizable from the columns of spreadsheets. How do we sum up a life? In grief, we grasp at what is left behind as clues to how to continue a relationship. This is a portrait of my father, Dr.

Σ (Sigma), is the mathematical notation for summation, recognizable from the columns of spreadsheets. How do we sum up a life? In grief, we grasp at what is left behind as clues to how to continue a relationship. This is a portrait of my father, Dr. Thomas Joseph Braciale, Jr. As a research scientist and educator, he considered the work of his students integral to the totality of his life’s work. Here, his blue shirts, a daily uniform, enfold the dissertations of his students which formerly took pride of place in his office. The actions that I undertook: folding, stacking and binding are an elegiac index of mourning. The materials of this portrait, shirts, books, belts, are obstinately quotidian. But they gesture towards the invisible connections that stubbornly persist: researchers and their questions, teachers to their students, a father to his daughter.

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