With Womens Work: Ayano Elson at Issue Project Room
Issue Project Room
February 10, 2021
In the first days of the new year, my friend and collaborator Matt Evans, my partner John Dodig, and my dog Patrick woke up before sunrise to help me film and record this video outdoors in Prospect Park. Two women ate breakfast as they watched me perform multiple runs of this work — my first public performance in 10 months.
Pauline’s score directs us to “keep the next sound you hear in mind for the next half hour.” The implicit and potential physicality — listening, remembering, and holding — drew me into her words. In building my own interpretation of her text, I thought of the specific sounds and environments I wanted to keep in my body and the ones that are out of my reach.
Whenever I think of Pauline, I envision her holding a conch shell to her ear, as I have seen her do in photographs. As she listens to her own heartbeat, her body and the shell create a dark pyramid made of flesh and calcium. It’s my desire that we sit in this enclosed space together.
The piece features accompanying sound by artist, composer and percussionist Matt Evans. Additional color correcting by video artist Hyung Seok Jeon.
