Sierra Diamond

 The Last Year combines original footage from 2017, the last year I lived in the US, with the transcript of an audio message recorded in 2024. Through this gap of seven years, a story unfolds.

I do not remember filming most of this footage. Like many things I have collected, it sat unused for a number of years. I found it in many ways unusable - unusable because many of the shots are grainy, polluted by TV noise and disembodied voices. Unusable because I was making another long-form performance at the time involving writing on my body. Unusable because it was simply too difficult to look at the reality displayed in the shots.

In 2024, something personally important happened, closing this story and allowing me to look at this footage differently. A central figure leaves my work with this video, and, on a very personal note, I hope that this work may provide him a final clarifying and healing view into what we shared.