About Me
from Désire
The Gift
wood, speakers, audio equipment, approx. 1.5 hour audio piece. 2008.
technical: Speakers are embedded in a table. I had invited six artist comrades to dinner and recorded each voice that is replayed through an individual speaker at each seat in the installation. Viewers may sit and listen to the discourse from the previous gathering attempting to participate in an event past.
content: May 2008 marked the 40th anniversary of the student uprisings in Paris, 1968. The conversations in The Gift re-visit that historic moment to pose a question, longingly and perhaps romantically about the present: Could the Paris model of social and political agency be employed in this country at a time when deepening crisis is coupled with fear and apathy. It reflects on this against a backdrop of the dinners French writer and activist Marguerite Duras’ often hosted.
