Kirsten Forkert
(Vancouver, BC)
On Saturday, Sept 27, 12 to 9pm, I will not answer the phone, check the email, or run errands. No multitasking, no deadlines, no distractions. I’m going to sit in one place and read and write, try to inform myself, try to think things through. About the relationships between local situations, ideologies, struggles, and how they are connected to other events, ideologies or situations elsewhere, even if it looks like they're not.
Especially given:
-that market values are becoming pervasive values
-the fact that we remember something one day in the news and forget it shortly after
-the fact that it’s so difficult to put the pieces together (in terms of mapping out some kind of understanding and/or strategy—however this might be interpreted, and the form it would take—which doesn't necessarily mean trying to come to some kind of resolution)
-that certain approaches no longer work and other approaches are becoming more relevant
Feel free to drop by and join me, for as short or long a time as you wish.
I will have books, newspapers, etc.: the ones I want to read but don’t have time. Thoughts and questions will be written on pieces of paper, and placed on the walls of the space during the 9 hours. There may be performative actions, objects, etc. that develop out of this process.
This is something I want to be doing anyway. But it’s something I don’t do, not enough, because of the demands of trying to balance paying the bills and making art. So this is about the political dimensions of the act of focusing, and developing an understanding (activities we don’t necessarily think of as very political) in the context of a culture where we are continually reacting, keeping up, and the resulting sense of fragmentation. But this is also not about liberal guilt. The 9 hours are not a luxury. Nor is this about nostalgia for a time when we supposedly had a longer attention span. This is also not an endurance project, even though it will take place for a long time.
This is also part of counterpublic, an ongoing project I am doing in a rented storefront at 692 East Hastings, which involves my own work, creating discussion, and facilitating the work of others. Thanks to the BC Arts Council for supporting this.
"Public Time" (2003, with Artspeak Gallery),
photo credits: Kim Munro/Jesse Birch
