REARRANGEMENT, A Performative Installation, 2016. For the duration of a dinner party, this project explores the continual act of rearrangemenT: Movement, Pause, Movement, Action, Reflection, Action.

Why do we rearrange objects and ourselves? Is ‘rearrangement’ a container for a wide spectrum of healthy to detrimental behavior?

The Setting

In the living room, fifty handmade oversized and undersized wire hangers are installed together. This is a moveable sculpture. Giant cloth and ink drawn shadow shapes live under chairs and telephones.

In the kitchen, tiny objects like perfume bottles, salt shakers and doll house furniture are displayed across counter tops. Their cloth and ink-made shadow shapes are found underneath or strewn over tiny hangers as if they were a pair of pants. These shadow shapes behave like puzzle pieces: they are a visual cue to rearrange objects to where they once were and where they will be. Each object has multiple shadows.

A topsy turvy cabinet sits in the center of the kitchen, as if tossed to the side by a tornado. Something is askew.

In the bathroom, there is a pile of soap.

The Happening

The party begins in the living room where all guests participate in rearranging sculptural wire hangers to form new shapes. As people migrate to the kitchen, they continue the practice by moving the tiny objects and their shapes. Slowly they realize they are in the middle of a performance where two people are frantically rearranging dishes.

The experience culminates in the bathroom where these two performers rearrange their bodies and fifty bars of soap between the shower and the sink until all the soap is used up. Guests view the happening through the doorway.

The performance escalates from public to private, equality to separation, and socially acceptable behavior to extreme.

Standard Projects, Hortonville, Wisconsin