A Breath In Need of an Explanation 2007
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. Writing produces a concrete document for the story of history. The detritus of conversations spoken in private that steer decisions yet are lost in memory, that less overtly inform history, were the influence for the audio presented.
“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