Premiered March 2010
Malateh – Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand
Presented
LabCab Festival – September 2010
Toronto Ontario
MST: Festival – October 2012
Calgary Alberta
Burden is an interactive performance installation that explores intimacy through sensory deprivation, the ingesting of secrets and the sharing of weight. Audience participation is crucial to the success of the piece. It is part of a series of pieces examining art as hospitality and the building of relationships through obstacle.
The piece is best in an environment that allows space and time to unfold. Audience members are welcome to watch others participate and also participate themselves. It is also fine to have the public enter the room one by one.
In a bare room, there is a table and a couple of chairs or something similar and adaptable. There is a bowl of hot water, a couple of small bowls with hot chili paste, two plates, a pile of rice paper rounds and two small paintbrushes.
As they enter they see a large sign offering instructions. Further into the room, I am standing alone blindfolded.
To adapt to an outdoor space, I could perform the work in a tent or another possibility is having it happen over a patch of grass, or to lay grass down and section the space off by a boxing ring type barrier. This way it has its own space, but the work is completely viewable by passersby.
Video taken at the MST: Festival, Calgary Alberta.