The Art of Conversation, summer 2000
a solo intervention / durational performance within the group project sponsored by the Service de la culture, Ville de Montréal, entitled D'un millénaire à l'autre: Neuf interventions artistiques dans des espaces extérieurs à Montréal The Art of Conversation, is based on the intimate art of conversation. Living room furniture is temporarily installed outdoors every Tuesday between 12:00 and 16:00 over a period of ten weeks (weather permitting). Participants in the conversations are those who come across the work accidentally, those who are directed toward it through word of mouth and publicity, and specific invited visitors. This participatory process is a key component as the work is not meant primarily as a viewing experience. In the deliberate blurring of roles -- invoking a question of who is the audience and who are the performers -- is a statement about the capacity for each and every one of us to be history makers and authorizing agents of individual and collective memory(ies). The domesticated setting is not simply a stage or theatrical device, it serves as the place/space where direct embodied interaction and communication becomes possible.