More so than being sad, I felt immensely angry, angry at people who make others feel small. I felt the guilt of sitting safely in a beautiful room taking photos of light. I sat for a long time. Doing nothing.
Eventually, through intuition and not the intention I began folding.
I skipped lunch. I kept folding. Old notebook entries, failed drawings, unused journals.
Something in me always doubts if making will lead to new or expanded thoughts, a doubt that is snuffed out as soon as I do anything.
It's June 10th I have made around 700 and I’m not even a quarter of the way through filling the room, but I am developing my what for. And, filling it is what I intend to do.
Looking at my research document and my past work the red thread is that my scenography is a response to my mood, a response to the time of a global crisis, a response to the environment around me. And now a response to my own position of relative safety and privilege.
What I am doing and what I propose to keep doing I can give in three parts.
- Filling the room: This is a response. I fold the paper only when I have access to the room. My muscles ache, my fingers are sore, it doesn’t always make sense. And it might be hard to keep going. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to put in the effort and the time to understand. I work by the time of the room. I am here whenever I am free, folding. The room is my platform, a place of beauty and aesthetics. But since last Monday I can stomach only talking about beauty.
- To fill to room as a scenographer. Within the actual space, the current plan is to place the spectator where zoom participant “spectator” is. To arrange a way of looking that requires the spectator to challenge how they look and to see the room through a new perspective physically. This requires me to continue experiencing what and where I place everything in the room. I also have the movement of the curtain that I want to consider, and how I can still use the light. How do I frame the intention when there is so much beauty to experience?
- How will I construct the communication between the work and the spectator? For the work itself, I plan on going back to my Research document - like I said I would - archiving my time here through precise documentation and narrative, to publish and share as research. The communication for the spectator about the perspective is easy enough through images and documentation but the concept of putting in the work might is harder.
My proposal for this takes me completely out of my comfort zone by using the Norwegian form of Säkte TV - or slow TV. In short, it would be broadcasting a day of me in the space, folding the paper, putting in the work. Essentially an 8-hour live stream. This concept and video will also appear in research and documentation. I chose slow tv because it is a televisions version of taking a slow, long, deep, breath. And, it forces the spectator to question what they consider ordinary, entertaining, and necessary. I have proven even to myself that thinking through making works, it was only while folding that I could articulate these words. And it is also during the process that I am making clear connections between what I have been doing and what I am doing now. I feel confident that my research has been leading towards this, and that I can defend it. I ask for you all to give me a green light so I can do more than look at light, and use my small platform to get something meaningful across.
