still. here

Project Notes:

I sat at a small table with a carefully stacked mound of hundreds of lemons.  The table was lit by a single overhead light and was located at the end of a very large gallery, the rest of the room in darkness.

For three and a half hours I stripped the lemons of their skins, rolling each one in a different direction across the floor when I had finished.  As I zested the lemons, I spoke out loud to myself, listing every possible way that I might change my life, always beginning with the phrase, “Maybe I should…”

Some of the changes that I considered were possible, others impossible or at best unlikely, and some were simply wishful thinking.  The suggestions that I made moved from thoughtful to humorous, mournful to hopeful, circling in different realms of alternatives as the hours unfolded.  It was probable that many of the possibilities that I explored were similar to those that everyone in the room had considered at one point or another in their lives.

As the time progressed, the smell of lemons began to permeate the room. The audience came and went, to see other performances elsewhere in the building, returning to see my progress.  I continued for three and a half hours, until the table was bare.

At the end a single lemon remained, suspended over the table.

This was the third of three related works that I did at Rapid Pulse:

still. missing in 2012

still. waiting in 2015

still. here in 2019