Walking a Word is fundamentally a work of drawing - a performative act made with the whole body expanded into everyday life. It is my body walking/drawing the word où on the shared ground of the 5th arrondissment in Paris. The word où refers to the question – ‘where is home’. Three walks spread over three separate days in the same location repeatedly ask the same question as if there might be different answers to be found. Each of the walks takes a particular shape– o, `, u, –shapes that together spell the word ‘where’ in French. The city itself offers (and obstructs) more than one possibility for walking these shapes.                                                                                              

 In this work the word où is used as a hinge between two modes; one a pragmatic reality, the common act of walking in a public space in which we share the ground with others, unknown to us; the other, language, a constructed reality integral to the body, spoken or written on a page. The first performative act is the act of walking, the second is the act of writing the narrative fragments that grow out of certain moments in the walk on the wall of the space (another shared ground) during the process of installing the exhibition. (See Walking a Word Installation). There the intention is to activate the present space not merely to document the past. The mirrors are placed along the length of the corridor on either side reflecting the viewer in multiple places so that the exact point of reflection is unclear. The space itself determines a linear walk along the viewing platform past the mirrors and the wall writings/drawings.