Walking a Word - Installation

Four mirrors and written panels alternate directly in line with the eight mirrors on the opposing wall

The viewer is reflected in the mirrors on both sides of the space, multiplying reflections and echoing the possibility of other selves.

Instructions for Walking Où on the wall at top of stairs leading to the walkway

Writing fragments – (Nodes) on the door and wall

The alternating written panels are part of the performative work. Each panel takes two hours to write on the wall of the space which is a shared ground just as the walk in the 5th Arrondissment was also a shared ground of another kind. It is intended to continue the notion of activating the space and giving a continuity to the performative act of walking the work ‘ou’, that occured in Paris, as opposed to representing a past action in photographs. Each panel contains fragments that pertain to the question of ‘where’, ‘ou’ is my home. Some are memory fragments that occured in a specifc place on the walk (called nodes) and these are indicated on the map of the walk. Some are street instructions for walking the word ‘ou’. Others indicate places in the world where french is still spoken and the last is the poem in french and English by the poet Yves Bonnefoy ‘called the ‘Curved Planks’,’Les Planches Courbes’ in which a small boy seeks out the ferryman in order to cross the mythical river. This poem was the subject of the previous exhibition.