03 Feb Exchange Values

public conversation as part of Exchange Values by Shelley Sacks, Birmingham 2005

‘The artist sets the conditions for and initiates the action of listening. Listening is neither passive, nor a tool for gathering and negotiating existing opinions, but an action which in itself is expressive and has agency.

There is a beautiful tension in some works, between the activist intentions to communicate an idea or position, and the desire for a conversation which has a life of its own, beyond the control of either partner. This is not a tension of opposites. To make sculpture in the social realm can mean to navigate, not direct, and even to let go of a conversation. And in this intimate and public sphere, to do this in order to create the conditions for change’.

key words: Hans-Georg Gadamer

at the Social Sculpture Research Seminars, Tate Modern  2005