A Breath In Need of an Explanation 2007
Karpeles Manuscript Library and Museum, Buffalo NY
Site-specific sound installation in tandem with an exhibit of correspondence documents from female historical figures (Queen Elizabeth, Sojourner Truth, etc.)
4 sets of speakers were placed under pews at different locations in the main space so that the listener, based on the acoustics of the space, could only hear the audio properly if seated at the site of the speakers. Considering the idea that history is only what is written, the audio seeks to compliment the letters by contributing private conversations and personal monologues to the space.
“Do you remember in Dr. Zhivago the way history sweeps everything out of his life, everything creating the slightest human feeling? How his identity is crushed by history, by the revolution? How everything personal, every fantasy, every human vulnerability, loses its meaning and is swept aside?” Morton Feldman, The Anxiety of Art 1965