This video installation is an alternative publication of a peculiar, original lyric essay. It depicts twenty-two people concentrating on vocalizing this essay as they hear it through a wireless headphone. Elements of each participant's individuality are revealed through their contribution to this game of listening-while-speaking. Concerned with discovery, the piece uses textual experiment to queer action and interaction, as a means to sidestep stale notions of the self. It might suggest that when we speak, we should listen at the same time; to know and show our true selves by discovering one another. At its heart the work aims to engage ingenuity, lead toward more generative and expansive forms of reading, and publish the imperative of active listening.
The work troubles a conclusive telling of care, loss, motherhood, perception, and emotional proximity. It's a literary photographic ritual that transforms cool, at times factual prose into embodied language. The essay's tone, style, and genre shift and then snap together using the video/audio cut not as an injury to time but as connective tissue; the grammar of moving image communicates as much as the actual words. The work is restrained, but it also reveals irrevereance toward orthodoxy, and humor about loneliness and awkward interaction. Moments of candidness and the embrace of error break illusion, invite examination of work's construction, and allow speakers' thoughts about the experience to be heard. Items that illuminate the text are hidden in plain sight near and farther from the viewing area. The simple bench is handmade from alderwood which carries a protective symbolism. Even itspattern of slats (that at once support and free the viewer) and the oblique angle of the monitor denote flexible care. A basket of blankets, plants, fruit, and subtle drawings form the rest of the quiet, playful installation.
Project Credits and Acknowledgements
Participants (in order of appearance) — Limei Lai, Martha Daghlian, Hawra Khandwala, Linda Hutchins, Whitney Handrich, Caroline Chapparo, Stacia Aguilar, Christian Locklayer, Adia Gibbs, Rachelle Rushford, Rebecca Burrell, Amy Bay, Leonide (Lee) Rushford-Margolin, Milo Quinn, Jodi Darby, Qi You, Leslie Hickey, Wynee Hu, Cerelia Maskarinec, Cayla Skillin-Brauchle, Beck Margolin, Michele Jaquis, and Malavika Arun.
Thank you for your help and support on this project — All of the participants, Boris Margolin, Leonide (Lee) Rushford Margolin, Rachelle Rushford, Beck Margolin, Louis, David Margolin, Julie Hoefnagels, Ellen Karpinski, Jerry Barenholtz, Sarah (Rabbit) Klockars-Clauser, Leslie Hickey, Eva Frazier, Rubus Discolor Project, Erin Boburg Doughton, Jenn Sova, Jody Darby, Jay Ponteri, Sara Jaffe, Alison Rollins, Amy Bay, Garrick Imatani, Emily Ginsburg, Sharita Towne, Derek Taylor, Ashley Stull Meyers, Dru Donovan, sidony o'neal, Carl Deihl, Roland Dahwen, D'Angelo Lovell Williams, Meghan Drury, Kristan Kennedy, PNCA MFA Visual Studies 2023 Cohort, buq emmalena Schulte, Simone Fischer, Erin Dengerink, Meghann Gilligan, Julie Perini, Araceli Vasquez Ortiz, Adia Gibbs, Stacia Aguilar, Lee Maskarinek, Shannon O'Brien, Sam Kegg, Katherine Curry, Myriah, Alexandra Sherman, Linda Hutchins, Maria Caballero, Emily Westberg, Kelsey Baker, and Whitney Handrich.
Dedicated to — my mother, Rachelle Chapdelaine Rushford, my daughter, Lee Rushford Margolin, and my husband, Boris Margolin. In memory of my father, James Rushford, my sister, Rebecca (Rushford) Dion, and my friends Paul Rudd, and Bruce Klockars.
All text was written by Sarah Rushford except the quotes noted below:
Patricia Lauber and John Wonsetler, Excerpt from "When the Ice Reached Down," in All About the Ice Age (London: W.H. Allen, 1965).
Margaret Wise Brown, The Wooden Town, poem, in "Goodnight Songs" (New York: Union Square Kids, 2014).
Kelly Medford, excerpted from “How to Draw a Detailed Tree: 11 Steps.” wikiHow. wikiHow, February 20, 2023. www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Detailed-Tree.
Kathryn Scanlan, Excerpt from “The Father.” Essay. In "The Dominant Animal: Stories." (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).
Project Transcript