excerpt from Public Speaking (Read-Along), Multimedia, 2014

The on-going installation series Public Speaking ( ) began as my contribution to Shh! at Minneapolis Central Library. Because it is available for public use, Azisa Koesoema, Adam Hamilton, Sieng Lee, and I used Cargill Hall exhibition space to consider the meanings of various public silences.

What happens after a speech is made?

In Public Speaking (Read-Along) and Public Speaking (Marginalia) respectively, I source and ‘re-mediate’ into contemporary dialogues about citizenship and scholarship speeches like Barbara Jordan’s Statement on the Articles of Impeachment and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence. Installed like a ‘study partner’ across from the seated viewer, each video is accompanied by a hand-bound draft of the text of the speech and a #2 pencil that invite the viewer to contribute to the community marginalia elucidating each speech’s relationship to contemporary life.