XXOO: SARAH IRVIN

Sarah irvin

xxooxxxxxooooo

I care for my daughter within a 2-2-5-5 custody schedule. This 14-day rotation splits time equally between two parents and is superimposed over a 7-day structure that I had internalized as normal — the 2-day weekend and 5-day work/school week. These are two of many ways to order time in a repeated pattern to support the needs of everyday life. At first, it was disorienting to be operating with both patterns concurrently. But, like playing the left and right hand parts simultaneously on the piano, it has normalized over the years, and to do things otherwise would feel strange. 

In this ongoing project, I’m exploring 2-2-5-5 as a visual motif which is represented here with x’s and o’s as “xxooxxxxxooooo” which repeats across the compositions. Through this work, I’m contemplating both the context-specific nature of what might be best within a caregiving relationship and the many possibilities for collectively marking time.