Thanks for Your Time, 2018

Durational performance, ink on paper

I am spending time repeating myself in order to change my brain.

I am repeating myself in order to change.

I am repeating myself.

I am.

Exploring the theme of time:

The original iteration of this project was a simple performance of holding a sign that said ‘Thanks for your time’. Through working within the space and engaging with what it means to take not only take time to create as an artist but take the time of your audience the idea formed into another iteration. Thanks for your time became a durational performance, 15 hours (3×5 hour blocks) where one artist covered the surface of the space in thumbprints, one print at a time. For the audience, the performance could be mesmerising, it could challenge people’s own use of their time, their patience and their concentration. For the artist, the performance was internal, meditative and a practice in using time to effectively shape who she is as a human.

Artist’s thought:

“People tap on the windows, violently, with intrigue, casually, insistently, it makes me feel a mix of vulnerable and interesting, overwhelmed and distracted. I put my headphones in and start the five-hour session with meditation. It gives me some autonomy to ignore the tapping, people think I can’t hear them but I can. The comments are entertaining but at first I let them dictate my pattern. I quickly realise that this is not the point, the work is not meant to be interactive. I become more and more focused, letting the pattern play itself out by feel.

If I get distracted or overwhelmed or my knees start to hurt I come back to breathing, I recant beliefs about myself that will help me change my neural pathways. They are simple; “I am enough” seems to take up the length of the floor before I look up again.

I let thoughts come in. How much like social media is sitting in this curated space while people peer in the window making judgements but having no idea what’s really going on in my world. I think about how fingerprints are so recognisable, clearly linked to out identity yet they are changeable, adaptable, can be interfered with. I wonder if my thumbprint is changing while I do this work and hope that my identity is alongside it.”