Orient-Al-ism 2017

08 Dec 2017 : Articulate Project Space, 497 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt. Sydney, NSW Australia

Articulate holds a group show every Christmas and this was my 3rd year. Articulate Turns Seven, 8-23 December 2017. For this work I inhabited my installation only for the exhibition opening event. Orientalism is about appropriation of the exotic, so I performed an appropriation by reading aloud words from the dictionary which ended in the letters al, Al being the short form of my name, Alan. The installation was made with the spices tumeric, paprika and sumac glued to a paper foundation. To this I added a wooden child’s chair and oversized crimson pyjamas that I had worn in the performance shoesandspices (2015). The work was situated in an alcove above a staircase. Following the performance the installation remained, with the vacant chair on which the dictionary and folded pyjamas were laid with a mound of sumac on top. My footprints remained in the tumeric.