Bystander
Bystander
in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik
Installation and Performance
Desk, Paper, Water, Soil, Glass, Pen
2017
Installation and Performance
Desk, Paper, Water, Soil, Glass, Pen
2017
The Paris Agreement, ratified in 2015, catalyzed an examination of how the body politic -- like the United Nations and participating nation-states -- contemplate solutions that determine the fate of Earth. Questions remain around who and what these agreements serve and who holds the power to decide. Bystander challenges the attempt by human bureaucratic rituals to solve an existential environmental problem that begs for deeper involvement. Without explicit instruction, participants are invited to approach an often inaccessible arrangement where an agreement could be (or could not be) signed on behalf of humans and non-human beings. The installation employs and disavows various ways for making a mark and problematizes the performance of agency towards a reckoning of our power and commitment to climate justice.