Falling into Place
Installation, 2021
Falling into Place, is a one-to-one audio-guided installation by Gretchen Schiller in collaboration with Jonathan McCree and Helen Paris.
Led by the gentle instructions whispered by the librarian, the audience is guided through the library for fifteen minutes. This research-creation is autotopological and explores the ways in which we carry and hold experiences of place in our bodies and through our daily gestures. It is choreographic narrative, where the invited guest is greeted by the librarian to then begin contemplating what it means to live in one’s body-library.
“We carry place deep in the cells of our body. A network of places mapped deep below the surface, places long forgotten yet intricately indexed. A kaleidoscope of colour, a geography of movement of words sentences commas semi colons colliding in our ribs our muscles, running down the thin blades of our ankle bones – broken fragments, fractured landscapes that when put together make whole libraries.”
“Tu sais, les lieux où nous avons vécu sont ancrés au plus profond de nos cellules. Une constellation de lieux formant une carte profondément enfouie sous la surface, des lieux depuis longtemps oubliés et qui sont pourtant parfaitement consignés. Un kaléidoscope de couleurs, une topographie où mouvements, mots, phrases, points, points-virgules sont reliés à nos côtes et nos muscles, courant le long des fines lames des os de nos chevilles – fragments éclatés, paysages fragmentés qui, une fois réunis, forment tout une bibliothèque.”
The French translation and readaptation of the project was carried out as part of the Performance Lab in 2021.
View the publication (PDF, 11MB)
This work benefited from the support of the UMR LITT&ARTS and a grant from the State managed by the Agency. « Investissements d’avenir » ANR-15-IDEX-02 and the Stanford-France Grant 2012.
