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<\/p>\n\n\tTen years ago, a Reddit user asked: \u201cWhat\u2019s your last memory of being picked up by a parent?\u201d The user StatOne recalled scrambling as a four-year-old to keep pace with his family as they briskly climbed an uneven hillside. He was falling behind and frightened of being forgotten in the dark when his father \u201cunexpectedly\u201d turned back. \u201cHe picked me up to his shoulder, never broke stride, so smoothly, so lovingly, like the hand of God reaching down,\u201d wrote StatOne.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd then, without warning, that god sets you down, packs you a suitcase and sends you off into the night. The ensuing terror of adulthood begins, and rarely ends for most Americans. In 2023, the US Surgeon General declared an epidemic of loneliness driven by a \u201cfundamental sense of disconnection from others or the world\u201d and fueled by too much technology, too much work, and a dearth of familial, religious, or spiritual fulfillment. Two years later, the prescribed remedy\u2014\u201dlearn to love oneself and community\u201d; \u201ccultivate meaning and purpose\u201d\u2014sounds tragically quaint. <\/p>\n
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\n\tA visit to the past may be in order. Conveniently, a sort of time machine opens today in downtown Los Angeles, courtesy of\u00a0Hauser & Wirth. Actor Frances McDormand<\/a> and performance artist Suzanne Bocanegra will debut at the gallery\u2019s downtown location a new iteration of CRADLED, a multisensory experience that they first staged in 2024 in collaboration with the Shaker Museum in upstate New York. The experience kicks off tonight and will remain on view through January 4, 2026. <\/p>\n \n\tIts official host, Make Hauser & Wirth, an intimate showcase of contemporary and historic craft tradition, has good taste. The Shakers, formally known as the United Society of Shakers, were a religious community founded in 1774 by the prophet Ann Lee and renowned for their self-sufficiency, celibacy, and minimalist aesthetic.\u00a0The Shakers earned their name from ecstatic, somatic worship: dancing, singing, literally shaking with devotion. It was, in a curious sense, a society of extremes. Shaker design resists excessive ornamentation, prioritizing form, but the artistic impulse will out: furniture makers often added asymmetrical drawer arrangements, for example, for visual texture. Though the sect has largely vanished, their core tenets of humility and utility speak\u2014quietly, of course\u2014through a wealth of surviving crafts. A few of those crafts appear in CRADLED, one being an easy guess. <\/p>\n \n\tIn the first iteration, an adult-sized cradle, painted a gentle baby blue, sat between McDormand and Bocanegra, each clad in period garb and perched on rocking chairs. The cradle was empty, inviting visitors to interpret it as a gesture toward the imminently departed or newly arrived\u2014or, as the curators suggest, both. More have been placed around the room in LA, though they will not be directly engaged by McDormand and Bocanegra. \u201cThe cradle is such a potent piece of furniture,\u201d Bocanegra said.<\/p>\n \n\tSharon Koomler, a curator at the Shaker Museum, added: \u201cYou would see [adult-sized cradles] in Shaker infirmaries, primarily. It was an opportunity to be hold somebody who was ill, somebody on the last leg of their earthly journey. I\u2019ll speak to myself: if I\u2019ve ever been particularly angst filled or really not feeling good, a rocking chair or just rocking myself in my own bed helps to soothe. Shakers understood that method of care.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tInstallation view, CRADLED at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, 20 November 2025\u20134 January 2026. Courtesy Shaker Museum (Chatham NY) and Hauser & Wirth<\/p>\n \n\tShe and her colleague, Jerry Grant, helped develop the experience with McDormand and Bocanegra. The artists considered every piece of furniture in the Shaker Museum archive that could symbolize mortality: tiny rocking chairs, adult-sized rocking chairs, wheelchairs, and beautiful maple walkers. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSuzanne\u2014wisely, as a conceptual, visual artist\u2014said concentrating on one object in the room is more powerful,\u201d McDormand said. The two collaborators also borrowed from the museum a few four-tiered wooden hangers that the Shakers used in their communal bedrooms. The hangers are installed on the walls, and blur the boundary between object and artifact. All together, the setting conjures \u201cthe ghosts of a community,\u201d according to McDormand.<\/p>\n \n\tMcDormand and Bocanegra met when McDormand was invited to perform one of\u00a0Bocanegra\u2019s acclaimed lectures-cum-experimental diary readings. Later, they discovered a mutual appreciation for Shaker material and spiritual culture. \u201cThe thing that strikes me over the years about the Shaker theology is that it really is love based,\u201d Grant said. \u201cWhen Suzanne and Fran first came to us with a concept of sort of looking at the arc of life from cradle to grave. To Shakers, that meant more than just putting someone in a nursing home; it was really a participation of caring.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOf all the forms of affection we anxiously measure, care may be the easiest to qualify. \u201cAs a feminist, \u2018love\u2019 was always hard for me because it went along with a lot of weird stuff, like the very high voices in Disney films of the female protagonist, who were falling in love with princes. But care, care is something different\u2014I think that that\u2019s definitely something that we all shared when we were building [CRADLED] together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n