Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand and renowned performance artist Suzanne Bocanegra are launching a groundbreaking multisensory art experience at Hauser & Wirth's downtown Los Angeles location. Their collaborative installation, titled "CRADLED," opens today and will run through January 4, 2026, offering visitors an intimate exploration of care, mortality, and community through the lens of 18th-century Shaker culture.
The installation represents a new iteration of the artists' acclaimed 2024 collaboration with the Shaker Museum in upstate New York. Set within Hauser & Wirth's "Make" program, which showcases contemporary and historic craft traditions, the experience draws inspiration from the United Society of Shakers, a religious community founded in 1774 by prophet Ann Lee. The Shakers were renowned for their self-sufficiency, celibacy, and distinctive minimalist aesthetic that prioritized function over ornamentation.
At the heart of "CRADLED" lies a powerful central metaphor drawn from a poignant Reddit post that captured the universal experience of childhood's end. A user named StatOne described being lifted by his father during a family hike, writing: "He picked me up to his shoulder, never broke stride, so smoothly, so lovingly, like the hand of God reaching down." The post continued with a stark observation about the transition to adulthood: "And then, without warning, that god sets you down, packs you a suitcase and sends you off into the night."
This theme resonates particularly strongly in contemporary America, where the U.S. Surgeon General declared an epidemic of loneliness in 2023. The crisis, driven by what officials described as "a fundamental sense of disconnection from others or the world," has been fueled by excessive technology use, overwork, and a decline in familial, religious, and spiritual fulfillment. Two years later, the prescribed remedies of self-love, community building, and purpose cultivation seem increasingly challenging to achieve.
The installation features several adult-sized cradles, including one painted in gentle baby blue that sits prominently in the gallery space. These oversized pieces of furniture carry profound symbolic weight, as explained by Sharon Koomler, a curator at the Shaker Museum. "You would see adult-sized cradles in Shaker infirmaries, primarily," she noted. "It was an opportunity to be hold somebody who was ill, somebody on the last leg of their earthly journey." The cradles remain deliberately empty, inviting visitors to interpret them as symbols of both departure and arrival.
The collaboration between McDormand and Bocanegra began when the actress was invited to perform one of Bocanegra's acclaimed lecture-performance pieces that blend experimental diary readings with conceptual art. The two artists discovered a shared fascination with Shaker material and spiritual culture, particularly the community's emphasis on gender equality and collective care. Working closely with Shaker Museum curators Sharon Koomler and Jerry Grant, they carefully selected artifacts that could symbolize mortality, including tiny rocking chairs, wheelchairs, and elegant maple walkers.
"Suzanne wisely, as a conceptual, visual artist said concentrating on one object in the room is more powerful," McDormand explained, referring to their decision to focus primarily on the cradles. The installation also incorporates four-tiered wooden hangers that the Shakers used in their communal bedrooms, mounted on the gallery walls to blur the boundary between functional object and historical artifact.
The Shaker influence extends beyond mere aesthetics to encompass a profound theological foundation. "The thing that strikes me over the years about the Shaker theology is that it really is love based," noted Jerry Grant from the Shaker Museum. This philosophy particularly appealed to the collaborating artists, especially given the Shakers' progressive stance on gender equality, which granted women genuine institutional authority rather than merely symbolic roles.
Both McDormand and Bocanegra's artistic practices engage deeply with questions of female selfhood and agency. For McDormand, this connection to care rather than romantic love holds special significance. "As a feminist, love 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," she reflected. "But care, care is something different—I think that's definitely something that we all shared when we were building CRADLED together."
The original iteration of "CRADLED" at the Shaker Museum struck a particular chord with female visitors, many of whom spontaneously joined the artists in communal activities like knitting and mending. "There were people who came back throughout the duration because they wanted to come and sit; they understood," Bocanegra recalled. This organic community formation exemplified the artists' vision of creating space for genuine human connection without transactional purpose.
In the Los Angeles presentation, McDormand and Bocanegra serve as "eldresses," though they emphasize that their work constitutes neither traditional theater nor what galleries typically term an "activation." Instead, they describe their presence as simply "people in a room with no transactional purpose." The daily programming begins with Shaker Lemon Pie served from 6 to 7 p.m., creating what they playfully call an "ascetic happy hour."
From 7 to 9 p.m., the artists engage in quiet activities like mending, occasionally pausing to rock visitors in the adult-sized cradle. Throughout the experience, composer David Lang's "end-of-life lullaby," adapted from traditional Shaker spirituals, provides a gentle sonic backdrop that softens the gallery's silence and enhances the meditative atmosphere.
The timing of "CRADLED's" Los Angeles presentation feels particularly poignant given the city's recent challenges. McDormand specifically cited January's devastating wildfires and the intensifying ICE raids as factors that make Los Angeles "really vibrant, but not an easy place to live." Bocanegra added concerns about the erosion of free expression at local universities to their list of contemporary challenges facing the community.
Against this backdrop of social and environmental uncertainty, the artists position their work as a form of collective healing and mutual care. "It might be a good time to consider how we can all care for each other," Bocanegra reflected, encapsulating the essential message of their collaborative effort. The installation offers visitors a rare opportunity to step away from the frantic pace of modern life and reconnect with fundamental human needs for comfort, community, and care.
"CRADLED" represents more than an art installation; it functions as a temporary refuge where the wisdom of an almost-extinct religious community offers guidance for contemporary struggles with isolation and disconnection. Through their careful curation of Shaker artifacts and creation of communal space, McDormand and Bocanegra invite Los Angeles audiences to experience a different way of being together—one rooted in mutual care rather than individual achievement or commercial transaction.
