10-14 September | Residence project
site-specific public lecture
TONIGHT NOT POETRY WILL SERVE is a poem written in 2007 by Adrienne Rich and a collection of works by Alfred Jaar, dedicated to her. TONIGHT NOT POETRY WILL SERVE is an unconventional conference/lecture, articulated over several days, where the resultant text is displayed publicly through an illegal act. This event is inspired by the work of the writer REVS who, from 1994 to 1999, kept a diary by writing on the walls of the New York City Subway System, creating over 200 “pages”. We will mark each “page” of this unusual conference with the defining caption of “N. “x” OF MANY”, where “x” represents each successive page number in chronological order. The content and the text of the lecture will be composed day by day, including a series of interviews conducted in the neighbourhoods surrounding the event. The questions will seek to gather, in an informal and anonymous manner, the personal experiences of the interviewees, regarding which illegal actions we typically carry out on a daily basis and what are our illegal desires.
TONIGHT NOT POETRY WILL SERVE is an event that is part of a more ample study, which invites people to relate directly with the boundaries between what is legal and what is illegal. Considering the law as something fluid, which changes depending on where we are in the world, the historic period in which we live and the sort of privileges we enjoy, the law defines what is considered moral, licit, in other words, what is right. It distributes power and the perception of power in Society, defining, categorising, dividing and controlling.
This study seeks to explore the potential of certain illegal practices, such as that of illegally affixing posters and how these can be virtually camouflaged in public spaces, right in plain sight, suggesting forms of resistance to local spectators, voiced in their very own words.
