YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info
Durational participatory action; wood table, 180 cm in diameter covered with 340 kg clay, wall drawing apprx. 2 x 3, 5 m, the board of KV Leipzig and other invited participants, recurring score including instructions and questions to engage with during weekly one-hour séances, 9 weeks, 2017.
For Performing Relationships YES! Association / Föreningen JA! suggested that a second version of All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you should be developed together with the board members at KV Leipzig. The exhibition was concerned with the conditions of and possibilities for collaborative processes within and beyond the artistic field and wanted to ask the following questions: Which roles, alliances and differences emerge through these working approaches and how can they be maintained and kept fluid at the same time? Can a non-hierarchical model for collective decision-making be established in a way that is sustainable? Where do the interests of active members and the public meet within an art association whose work straddles professional projects, ambitious leisure activities and growing responsibilities?
YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info
The instructions / question that the board members were asked to engage with during the séances were as follows:
Opening evening: Unpack the clay. Place it on the table. Work it through until it covers the table
evenly. / What is a political decision?
Séances 1: Engage the clay with the Karl Marx quote: ”All that is solid melts into air”. / How do you make up a “we”? Are you friends right now?
Séances 2: Engage the clay with the Audre Lorde quote: ”I come from the earth‘s inside.” / Do you want to grow? What does growing do?
Séances 3: Make a fire! / Are you angry? Are you making trouble right now?
Séances 4: Engage the clay with the Sadie Plant quote: ”Those were the days when we were all at sea.” / Does this make you capable?
YES! Association / Föreningen JA! was present during the the opening and engaged in the first instructions / question.
YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info
The first version of this project erupted from a brief and intense entanglement with Kristine Anthis in New Haven, CT, in the fall of 2016.
The title All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you is taken from Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993).
YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), installation view, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info
YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), installation view, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info
Comment on article?
