arriving in cork friday, c and i have been setting about our process of adapting FAREWELL for the city. this involves installing into the disused storefront. making audio field recordings, and photographs. sourcing local food and drink. learning about the past and the present by talking with people. making note of the experiences we will miss when we are gone.

what does it mean to live in a community? is it participation? complicity? a shared experience? for this version in ireand, we are attempting or temping to invite the audience to see themselves more as a temporary community by giving them an opportunity to speak, by inviting them to complete an image we have in mind for the ending. in doing so, we are hoping to draw out more of the community, and at the same time, making that final goodbye a little more harder to do.

saturday c and i attended a panel discussion on community collaboration. i found myself thinking about what we do more as a proposal to a community more than integration into a community. our use of space is another aspect of the work where this relationship shows up, it is site-specific in the sense that we use disused storefronts, train stations, closed pool halls… but what we seem to do it occupy space. we leave it as we found it, putting up some streamers and blowing up some balloons to draw attention to the event of coming together. we think about what it would be like in the future. we proposes what it would be like if everyone that left had stayed.

i find myself also thinking about the essence of a goodbye. is it to never experience something again? is it moving on? a letting go? is it allowing things to change?

today we are trying out a new projector. we are also going to be doing a dress rehearsal.