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sherk - sitting still

Bonnie Ora Sherk: "Sitting Still"from "Evolution of Life Frames" (2002).
image copyright Bonnie Ora Sherk

Bonnie Ora Sherk (USA)

"Since the early 1970s, Bonnie Ora Sherk has been creating participatory artworks in public spaces which deal with environmental and ecological issues. Starting with her installations by the sides of major roads through a massive communal garden near a big intersection in San Francisco ('The Farm') to the 'Living Libraries' of today, developing from ephemeral phenomena to large-scale social artworks, all of Sherk's projects aim to create a new understanding of and relationship with the space we inhabit.

"Portable Parks' were performances by the side of the freeway, in which Bonnie Ora Sherk created temporary pastoral islands in the midst of chaotic traffic. For "Sitting Still', the artist dressed up in an evening gown and sat still for hours in various places such as a garbage dump or near the Golden Gate Bridge. In "Public Lunch', she had herself locked up in a cage at the zoo, where, like the tigers in the adjacent cage, she waited for feeding time under the gaze of the zoo's visitors. Bonnie Ora Sherk initially called her works "Life Frames', but in 1981 she abandoned this term in favor of the concept of "Living Libraries'.

 

In the Video Archive:

"Portable Parks / Sitting Still / Public Lunch", from "Evolution of Life Frames", 2002, 30:00min.


Links:

A Living Library
Green Museum