what happens when you become an authority
Materials: Fabric, wood, grass, intestine, steel, images printed on paper, toys.
Dimensions: Overall, 15’ x 30’
This design was located in a Rite-Aid pharmacy window. The floor was layered with grass and
children’s toys wrapped in intestine. Forming the back was a large memory wall made from curved steel rods.
Stretched across the rods was stretched and dried intestine. Embedded inside the intestine were images from Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
Artist’s text: Deucalion, a man from myths, who can create people from stones, has a dream in which he finds himself
trapped inside a wall. His eyes are closed but he can feel with his hands that he is caught in a membrane. Each time he
pushes against it, the surface peels off so that the wall can yield to his weight without allowing him to break through.
After a while, he feels something push against the wall from the outside and recognizes other voices, those which he
himself has created. Even though they are standing close to the wall, they cannot hear the voice locked up inside.
He presses his hands to the wall once again and feels a touch push against his palm. Duecalion recognizes the sound
of a ball bouncing. He listens to hear the voices and discovers that they are children playing a game, operator.
With each repetition of the story and each return of the ball, Deucalion grows larger and larger until, when he’s
almost at the point of being crushed, his thumb punctures the surface. He pulls apart the wall and with his eyes,
he peers through the opening and sees the children playing in the grass. They invite him to join their circle to finish
the re-telling of the story. For every detail he forgets and every elaboration he makes, he loses his authority
and lets the tale become one of memory.
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