We go to see our friend’s grad show.
There are a series of rooms off a long corridor so we start at one end and work our way down. We talk about the Kardashians for the majority of the first three rooms. This is the level of engagement our friend would have wanted.
There’s one with a candle that has different coloured shadows. And a hanging one with silk wrapped around it. And there’s a sort of big mobile one we can see our faces in. There are two video works featuring rivers.
There’s one about sports that we don’t understand. We look in vain for the explanatory labels. We remind ourselves we don’t have to “get it”.
We want to touch all of them. There aren’t signs that tell us not to, but we just know that we can’t. Particularly the one with the purple orbs – we really want to touch that one. We really want to know how heavy those orbs are. But we don’t.
We reach our friend’s piece last. There’s a bench with two headphones and we sit down and listen to her voice in our ears. She’s funny. The lighting is low and it’s relaxing to just sit and listen to the voice of someone you know.
At one point she breathes slowly in and out for several seconds and we sync our breath up with hers.
When the recording cycles back to the beginning, we look at each other and nod and take the headphones off.
Then we put them back on so we can send a photo to our friend. So we can prove that we were here. So we can prove that we’re her friends.
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A version of this post was sent by email on the 18th February 2018 as part of Internet Care Package.
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