Every Ocean Hughes

One Big Bag

Every Ocean Hughes wrote, staged, and directed the video work One Big Bag, which takes the form of a monologue from a perspective of a doula to explain the materials that comprise an end-of-life doula’s toolbox. The video’s narrative is the result of interviews with end-of-life doulas, as well as the artist’s own experience and training. The video is a window into a hidden world, where the materials and rituals revealed are both quotidian and employed in unexpected ways. A sense of play, but also reverence, and a capacity for reaching into the beyond pervades the video. The actor Lindsay Rico who plays an end-of-life doula, leads viewers through the conditions and situations of death. Hughes wrote the script and directed Rico to embody “competence,” defying and transforming the general (and often unspoken) taboo of talking about death in public. The work has a spiritual presence; its radiance is built, amplified, and sustained through the actor’s vivid attention—often looking directly at the camera—and graceful movements. One Big Bag is part of a series of three works that address different aspects of death and dying. The other two, Help the Dead and River are both sixty-minute live performances. One Big Bag was originally conceived in context to the culture and history of LGBTQ kinship and care. The series’ resonance expanded during the pandemic, which saw millions of deaths, transforming the context that surrounds the work—a perspective that Hughes welcomes.