Boxed Realities - Culemborg, Netherlands 2020
Performance installation
Two chairs opposite each other and a mirror in between them. When two people occupy the chairs, the performance begins.
I help them wear the boxes on their head, and I press play to start the audio guidance.
Inside the boxes, there is a scale model of the exhibition space and specifically of the facade towards the garden. On top of the one box, there a GoPro camera connected to a screen inside the second box.
The audio invites the spectators to look around, stand up and observe the space of the exhibition. It asks them to move towards the door leading to the garden. When they arrive, the spectator wearing the go pro camera is invited to open the big door and explore the garden while the other spectator has to stand by the door and open the scale model’s door. Behind this little door, there is a screen. Everything that the first spectator records live feeds this screen.
Shh... Did you hear the train?
Trains go back and forth here all day... Every day
And I’m always here listening
Hey! Look at me when I talk to you.
What? You can’t see me?
Look at your right... yes! Where the exit door is... Do you see that door? It’s a door that leads to the garden; maybe I will let you open it later...
For now, you can both stand up!
How do you feel today?
How do you feel in the space?
Is it heavy?
Well, it is... It is full of stories!
Look around...
Come closer...
Do you see the white paint?
Something was there...
...and the drawings at the other side?
So many details, so many layers!
It’s like time stopped here at different moments; everything is happening outside but here is still, paused...
Look at the door.
Stand in front of it.
It’s like this space wants to keep you inside.
It wants you to miss the train, to miss everything that is happening outside, to miss life.
Listen carefully; there are so many sounds out there...
Do you see the green threat in front of you? It is connected to the little door; open it wide.
Make one step back and look outside
Look how big the garden is...
It looks like a forest starts after the little warehouse
I’m sure you want to go and see, you have to be very curious be now...
but you can’t go! You have to stay here, exactly behind this door.
...
Did you find what you were looking for?