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.
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