The Long Keeping

Sanctuary of Eremo delle Carceri
Assisi, Italy
August 13, 2026

The Long Keeping is a durational performance with linen tunic, red ink, blond hair, handwritten letter, olive wood cross, leather strap.

In a silent, communal procession, artists from the Nido V/Acts of Care residency carried a linen tunic into the Franciscan Sanctuary on Mount Subasio. The garment, with words from St. Clare embroidered in blonde hair, was laid on the ground and offerings were placed on top of it. I delivered a handwritten letter and a wooden Tau cross wrapped in blonde hair to Father Matteo Curina, asking him to keep the ex-voto in the sanctuary as a symbol of the shared spiritual legacy of Saints Clare and Francis.

Leah Dalton, Keeley Haftner, Stevie Imuakalani Hanley, Mark Jeffery, Kelly Kaczynski, Susan Krueger-Barber, Asé Selah, Ray Seebeck, Joel Silverman, Peter Walz, Nick Wylie

Letter presented to the Franciscan brothers along with the ex-voto Tau cross wrapped in blonde hair

To the Franciscan Brothers at the Eremo,

I send you greetings of peace during this solemn year of the 800th Centenary of the Transitus of Holy Father Francis. As a traveler on a shared path, I come to your hermitage with a votive offering: a Tau cross wrapped with blond hair, a symbol of Clare of Assisi’s radical detachment, her sacred vows, and her trading of worldly adornment for spiritual devotion.

In Audite Sorelle, their centenary letter to the global Franciscan Family, the Ministers General emphasized that the 800-year-old legacy does not belong to one branch alone. They explicitly highlighted Clare and the sisters of San Damiano as foundational to the shared Gospel movement, declaring the charism incomplete without both the friars and the Poor Clares.

I ask that you receive this work into your sanctuary for this centenary year not as an artifact of the past, but as a living expression of the institutional wholeness your leadership has proclaimed. The Franciscan spirit is intact when the brother and the sister are together.

Thank you for your stewardship of this holy ground.

Peace and Good,
Kiki McGrath

Image credits: Ray Seebeck
Conceptual research and planning: Nick Wylie
With gratitude to the artists at The Poor Farm,
Living within the Play/Nido V in Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy