Laura Bernstein

“Afflictions that depend on the power of suggestion cannot survive without the beliefs that underpin them."

—John Waller, A Time To Dance A Time To Die: The Extraordinary Story Of The Dancing Plague Of 1518

Laura Bernstein’s The Curse of St. Vitus and the Rat-Catcher reimagines historical recordings of Medieval mass mania, drawing particular inspiration from the 1284 folktale the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the Dancing Plague of 1518.

Bernstein uses these eruptions of mass movement, “legions of furry,” “possession rituals” and “cultural contagion” to ask us to consider our own reactions to the rapid shifts of environmental and social change. How do these stresses permeate throughout our bodies? How do we consume the ticks of our neighbors and conform to the mass howling? What happens when we misstep and behave in unpredictable and unexpected ways? What is required of us to slow down and encounter these questions through sculpture — a static, frozen form?

Drawing on sketches that the Dutch master, Pieter Bruegel, produced after he witnessed several dance eruptions, as well as illustrations of the Pied Piper legend, Bernstein creates a series of life-sized theatrical sculptures composed as tableaus, reminiscent of Medieval Miracle Plays. Built to incorporate replaceable parts, and installed on casters, they suggest the potential for continued mutability—new configurations and future activations.

Laura Bernstein is an interdisciplinary artist and arts educator from the Bronx, NY, currently based in Brooklyn. Bernstein holds a BFA from RISD and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania. She creates installations using video, performance, sculpture, and painting. Her work plays with historical mythologies about human and animal behavior in relation to changing climates. She has exhibited at Essex Flowers Gallery, The Children's Museum of The Arts, New York, NY; BRIC, Nurtureart, Y2K group Project Space, all in Brooklyn, New York; The Bronx Museum of the Arts as part of the AIM Biennial; ArtYard's Hatch Biennial in Frenchtown, NJ. She has participated in the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program and The Lighthouse Works Fellowship; and was a Grant Recipient of The Franklin Furnace Fund and Apexart Traveling Fellowship. Bernstein is currently the Toby Devan Lewis artist in residence at ISCP through June '24.