Reassembling the shreds of the United States Constitution and other founding documents.
Being in Canada always offers a useful perspective on the United States of America. And especially now, it is a welcome break from the current regime of Trump and his minions. Nevertheless, I can’t escape the daily accounts of their destruction of our government.
I arrived at Latitude 53 Gallery for my performance with rolls of scotch tape, and a bag of scraps of paper. They were the shreds of scans (31 pages) of the United States Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, The United States Constitution and its 27 Amendments.
For five hours I sat at a table in the front window of the gallery, working feverishly and without a break matching the texts of the scraps to reassemble and tape the documents back together.
I had planned to read each page out loud when I had finished putting it back together and then hang it in the window facing the street. But in five hours I was only able to finish assembling one document, though three additional pages were nearly complete.
If someone offered to help me, I asked if they were a U.S. citizen. If they weren’t, I sadly declined their offer, saying that it was our problem and we were the only ones who could fix it.
I had thought that I might get further in five hours reassembling the documents. Clearly we need to continue this work, and quickly, to restore our Constitution.
