This blog was started two years ago during my stay in Edinurgh to map and log the process of my work “Travel in the Box” commissioned for Horsecross’s Threshold Artspace. We can discuss the success of that work and pose questions like was that the time for the work to come to light and we can drag many other variables into the discussion too. The fact remains that all thru the last two years I’ve been trying to develop that work thru a couple of versions. Anytime I’ve had a chance to exhibit it I went for a different version.
Scaling the work down from Threshold’s original 22 screen display to 10 and sometimes just 1 screen the work has been undergoing constant change. For one I have definitely omitted the blackface, I have added the scrolling text video and made the work more cohesive, more solid. Still, I’ve always felt that it’s really not there yet – until recently.
The new and improved Travel in the box will take form mostly as a performance/poetry reading. I’ve asked 5 poets and poetesses: Mehmed Begic, Andreja Duganzic, Ivona Jukic, and Marko Tomas to contribute to the project with a poem. The topic is, of course, the separate travels of Henry Brown and Charles McKinley in the box. I plan to construct a box and red their poetry curled up in the crate while live camera projects my image form the box on 5 screens for the public to see.
It has been an absolute pleasure to receive their contributions one by one and read them. I will be bringing their works to this blog as soon as I gather all the translations we are preparing for the production of a limited edition booklet. Soon, it will be soon, as the re-vamped “Travel in the Box” piece/performance is about to premiere in Ljubljana on 13.10.2009 in Gallery P74 as part od City of Women festival with the theme “Global South”.
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