Replacements, 2012 – ongoing
Performance/installation with the participation of the museum staff
Replacements is realized with the participation of staff of the organization where the project is being presented – everyone from the curators and the director to the librarian, the maintenance staff and the installers.
Each day for the duration of the exhibition a different member of staff selects an object from anywhere in the building and relocates it to the exhibition space for the day, replacing the object that had been placed there the day before. As each object is dislocated from its everyday place and function, it is temporarily re-framed as an art object, put in new spatial and social relations with other objects in the exhibition space and with people who encounter it there.
In addition to displacing objects and removing them from their context, Replacements playfully disrupts the work routine of people working at the institution, engaging them in a game of call-and-response with their co-workers and recasting them as performers / installers / decision makers in a project.
As part of their project task, participants take two photographs: one of the previous day’s object as they encounter it in the gallery at the start of the day, and one of the object they have selected, after they’ve relocated it to the exhibition space.
As the project grows over time, the images are posted daily on the wall in the gallery and/or uploaded to the project website where visitors can follow the unfolding of the project from day to day for the duration of the exhibition.
