choice + control

Play / searching / unknown / anticipate / sugar / games / balance / time

Space: white floor, stainless steel table, bottom of table filled with a mound of sugar, single light bulb hanging in front of table. I start slowing picking up the sugar with both hands and putting it on the floor on both sides of the table. I continue doing this for 3 hours. In that time, I start to find different things in the sugar – letters and dominoes. All are cast in sugar. When I find a domino I put it on top of the table. When I find a letter I place it in front of the table. By the end the letters spell out Wanna Play and there is a full set of dominoes on the table. I play dominoes with 10 + audience members until the numbers start to disappear.

Photos by Vela Phelan

Pain / healing / self imposed / nothing is black and white / shades of grey / primer grey / containment / choice

At 6pm I open a small glass jar that is filled with Tiger Balm and rub it on my exposed skin – feet, legs, arms, neck, face. I put the lid back on the jar. There is a grey shelf with different size apothecary jars in front of me. Each jar has a different color grey string or yarn in it. Behind each jar is a small canvas that is painting the same color as the string or yarn. I am sitting on a grey stool. I have a grey outfit on that is the same color as the stool. I open one of the jars and find the end of the string. I start to wrap my left foot with the yarn. I continue to my right foot, then my left arm. Then my right arm. Then my left hand. Then my right hand. Then my neck. I unravel my hands and wrap them again. I sit. Starting with my hands and ending with my feet I unravel the yarn and leave it on the ground. The piece ends at 8pm.

Photos by Vela Phelan

Water / visions / stream with rock paths / path = support, friendship, help / remembering / caring / dignifying life and death / reflect / revive / healing

The element this year is water. There is a very large pool of water in the middle of the space. Thirty-six pedestals make a larger circle round the pool of water. On each hour rain fills the pool of water. I walk in to the middle of the too with a white box filled with circular ice forms in one hand and a pile of shiny cloths in the other, it is raining. I walk around the circle once. I place the box on the floor. I begin by laying one of the pieces of cloth on the floor in front of me. I step on it and do it again, and again, and again, until I make it back to my box. I take one ice form out of the box and place it on one of the pedestals. I continue doing this until each of the pedestals has been given my ice offering. Each ice form has a small bottle filled with salt in it, which will be left behind. It is raining again. I pick up the empty box and pick up each piece of cloth.

Life / death / spirits / ghosts / belief / disbelief / searching / finding / directing / reality / control / play / contrast / interact / boundaries

Gallery space. Lots of objects in place. Large wooden box, decorated bicycle on top of green turf, pictures of skinny people, lots of green, gold, blue, black, ironing board with of jars filled with different things, pedestal covered in blue with jars of water, a skull, flags, large bowl of eggs and jars of blue, bowls of apples, a big inflatable space being inflated by a box fan…….Dirk, Maria, Jeff, Vela and myself roaming around, fiddling, and figuring. GJYD workers doing their thing – one worker bicycling on the bike, two others guarding. Viewers start arriving, pulled to watch the bicycling action. You can sense no one was sure what to do. I direct them with my black and gold flags – where to stand, where to sit, where to go. Everyone goes where I tell him or her to go. J + V start messing with their big box. Trying to open it. I am not sure what Dirk or Maria is doing.  The box falls. J + V are trying to pry it open. I get my horse skull, sit a few feet away from J + V and start trying to pull the teeth out. It is hard. Really hard. I get some help from some students, they were very dedicated to helping me, and they did not give up. I go hand out apples to viewers. Most everyone takes one when offered one. Though out the evening a take an egg, find a person, surround them with the egg’s energy, break the egg into a jar filled with water and give them the jar. I do this maybe 10 times. I find a large paint bucket filled with Lucky Charms – some liquid, not sure what. I offer the Lucky Charms to viewers, most take some, and they are good. I go to the studios in the back of the gallery, leaving some LC behind in different places. Sneaking. Playing. I direct viewers with the flags more. I give a few flags away to empower others to move the audience too. I offer more apples. I offer honey. The GJYD workers have changed positions. One of them is still riding. The other two are lying on either side of the bike. I decide I want their golden shoes. I easily take one. The other proves more difficult to get. There is some cloaked person protecting them. It’s annoying. I try harder, but decide to stop. I direct more people with the flags. I offer Maria things in a pulley bucket. Nothing really makes any sense. There is a big mess.

Internal carrier / heroic / distance / interior / exterior / public / private / global / personal / effects / drugs / lost battle / hope / search for understanding / control / lies / deception / cover up / family / origins

Office space with a large glass window. The door is shut. Black plastic floor. Small black table. Large black bucket. Large paintbrush. Black plastic bag. I am dressed in black – black shirt, black skirt. I open the bag and pull out a pile of photocopies of x-rays of drug runner’s bellies/insides.  I put on a pair of black latex gloves. I open the bucket, dip the paintbrush and begin putting wheat paste on the window. I start sticking on the photocopies. I continue to put up the photocopies until there is a 2’x 5’ viewer area. I take off the gloves, put the lid on the bucket and step behind the table. I take off my skirt and shirt to reveal a large quantity of drugs taped to my abdomen area. I have on a white bra and white underwear. I use a blade and cut the drugs off. They are wrapped in white table and saran wrap. There are 7 large bundles. One by one I cut them open and make piles of the different drugs – small heroin balloons, small bags of cocaine, and pills. I begin emptying each balloon out until there is a pile. I empty each baggie out and each pill. I throw the empty balloons, baggies and pills onto the floor as I go. Once I have completed this action I put my shirt and skirt back on and wheat paste a photograph of my sister Katy, her son Cayden and Cayden’s father Taylor in the viewing whole on the window. Taylor is currently in jail for selling heroin. Katy’s life has been directed and affected by drugs for the past few years. We cannot release the grip it has on her.

Photos by Vela Phelan

Photos by Daniel DeLuca

Posted July 13th, 2011 by Sandrine

http://thepresenttense.org/archive/http://thepresenttense.org/archive/

Underneath/ enlargement / preserving / water / context / light / educator / interaction

Long pier on Staten Island. Large white table with 50+ small specimen containers, filled with…. small pieces of seaweed, seeds, flowers, sugar, noodles, string, fabric, etc. The table also has an old overhead projector sitting in the center. I walk out to the installation once it starts to get dark. Everything is white: table, projector, me. I start playing…. adding different things to my bowl of water….. watching, playing….I put on a slightly creepy mask, watch the image, then poor it into a plastic bag and attach it to my shirt, each image is captured in a bag. I start over. This continues for about 4 hours. I have lots of interesting interactions with viewers…. wonderful playing sessions with children. Once everything is about gone, the piece ends.

Photos by Vela Phelan & Dirk Adams

Hold on / preserve / remembering / letting go / objects / remnants / sharing / releasing / friends / MEME / Dirk / Vela / Sandrine / Phil / Brad / Alice / performance art / love

Inside the Travellers Box is seven jars filled with remnants of different MEME events from the past two years. Cards, Flexib’s dust from his piece, pieces of sponge we have wiped and cleaned the space with many times, Lalie’s courage / security coins, Asuka’s fundraiser prints, pieces of the bandanas worn at Street Museum, one of Lewis’s language generator trials…through out the night I watch, and choose seven people to give them to. Jacy, Maria, Tim, Mark, Sandrine, the unknown fella, and Caliopia. MEME will be preserved. Forever. The Travellers Box is empty. It enjoys the rest of the celebration with the many, many people that come and dance, talk, watch. Preserved forever.

Continuous repetitive / dedication / transformation / choice / growth of understanding / umbilical cord / MEME / Central Square / love / releasing

MEME. A white chair. Three single lights on the floor. A huge stack of toilet paper. Three things of white mason string. Seven white bottles. Me.  At 7pm on May 13^th I start making a rope with the toilet paper and mason string. Wrapping one around the other. It slowly grows. The action becomes easier, more fluid. Norfolk Street comes and visits me all night, looking through the windows. Offering me kindness, alcohol, water, tea, praise, love…all nightlong. In the early morning hours I am alone. No one walks by. The rope is still growing. People stop, they look. Some for a second, some for a few minutes, some longer. The rope keeps growing. I can close my eyes now and make it; the action is in my hands, out of my head. Around 3:30pm I run out of mason string. I find the while table cloth that John G. Boehme used for his piece just one day before and start ripping into pieces, long narrow pieces and tying them together. I use it to wrap around the toilet paper until it is gone. It is about 5:30pm now. I am done making the rope. I move the chair out of the space. I organize the extra toilet paper, the empty toilet paper rolls, and the empty water bottles, in the back of the space. I make a pile with the rope. I lay in it for a while, resting. I wake up. Dirk  Adams and Vela Phelan help me to wrap the rope around MEME. It is my umbilical cord, connecting me to MEME. Alison Adams helps to wrap the rope around me. I am tired. I am not thinking very clearly. People start to arriving, coming in the space. I begin reciting all of the shows we have had at MEME. Trying to remember them all. I ask for everyone’s help. We have had over 200 artists at MEME over the last two years. As I am reciting the names, the shows, I am slowly untangling myself from the rope. It is slowing falling to the floor. It is revealed that the end is tied around my waste. I cut it. Letting go. Releasing MEME. It is hard. It is 6:30pm on May 14^th.