Artist Statement
Do you believe in kindness, and if so, what colors come to mind when you recall it? What does the world look like from a perfectly still and non-violent point of view? What potential does the act of holding up a mirror have in a time of war? These are some of the questions that have inspired my publicly-engaged performances and installations. Through these questions, I hope to encourage more generous and empathetic interactions among neighbors and strangers in situations they routinely encounter. I work from the standpoint that attentiveness and shared creativity enable rapport, empathy, and compassion amidst human differences.
I draw upon the poetics of visual and tactile forms, as well as cultural theory and psychologies to catalyze thoughtful interactions. I ask project participants to put objects, images, and stories into motion at sites reflective of issues such as war, civil rights, and our treatment of the environment. Together, project participants pay attention to the small shifts in familiar daily activities that sometimes give way to insights. For example, in Apologies Project, hand cast soap bars embedded with the words “I’m Sorry” were offered to passersby. The soaps connected conversations about apology and forgiveness to Ground Zero. In the Mirror Project, walking in Manhattan became an opportunity to look upward, in search of sunlit signal mirrors displayed by neighbors who wished to recover from seeing airplanes as bombs.
In contemplative video projects, I invited participants to utilize video cameras as tools for paying exquisite attention to their worlds as they unfold, frame by frame. In workshops, we critiqued our videos and share stories. The emotional looping we recognized as rapport often developed as participants made “response” videos, inspired by one another. The resulting split-screen, collaborative video works have shown in several museum exhibitions; however, the most engaged screening occurred a Syracuse University event, during which students, community members and faculty improvised a sound track of bell chimes. What ensued was 18 minutes of rapt attention to videos of often mundane events: daffodils blowing, a bag on the sidewalk stomped upon absent-mindedly, a brown river tide swirling and making its way down its banks. Audience members became highly aware of one another as they reacted not only to the video images, but to one another’s bell songs. A complete circuit of attention uniting contemplative video, videographers, and audience members was formed and held. http://www.annebeffel.com/contemplative-video.html
“What color comes to mind when you recall kindness?” This simple question launched the Color of Kindness project, now installed at the University of Iowa Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. In it, I drew approximately 100 color interpretations of individuals’ free associations as they imagined the colors they associated with memories of kindness and strove to describe it in words. This project was an experiment in the power of words to connect human beings, and the simultaneous failure of language to completely embody the phenomena of color. It was a study in the practice of listening. It was also an engaged performative piece, based in my neighborhood, and portable enough to travel the world. In fall 2012, my approximately 100 color studies and micro-stories about color and kindness were on exhibition at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan.
I draw upon the poetics of visual and tactile forms, as well as cultural theory and psychologies to catalyze thoughtful interactions. I ask project participants to put objects, images, and stories into motion at sites reflective of issues such as war, civil rights, and our treatment of the environment. Together, project participants pay attention to the small shifts in familiar daily activities that sometimes give way to insights. For example, in Apologies Project, hand cast soap bars embedded with the words “I’m Sorry” were offered to passersby. The soaps connected conversations about apology and forgiveness to Ground Zero. In the Mirror Project, walking in Manhattan became an opportunity to look upward, in search of sunlit signal mirrors displayed by neighbors who wished to recover from seeing airplanes as bombs.
In contemplative video projects, I invited participants to utilize video cameras as tools for paying exquisite attention to their worlds as they unfold, frame by frame. In workshops, we critiqued our videos and share stories. The emotional looping we recognized as rapport often developed as participants made “response” videos, inspired by one another. The resulting split-screen, collaborative video works have shown in several museum exhibitions; however, the most engaged screening occurred a Syracuse University event, during which students, community members and faculty improvised a sound track of bell chimes. What ensued was 18 minutes of rapt attention to videos of often mundane events: daffodils blowing, a bag on the sidewalk stomped upon absent-mindedly, a brown river tide swirling and making its way down its banks. Audience members became highly aware of one another as they reacted not only to the video images, but to one another’s bell songs. A complete circuit of attention uniting contemplative video, videographers, and audience members was formed and held. http://www.annebeffel.com/contemplative-video.html
“What color comes to mind when you recall kindness?” This simple question launched the Color of Kindness project, now installed at the University of Iowa Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. In it, I drew approximately 100 color interpretations of individuals’ free associations as they imagined the colors they associated with memories of kindness and strove to describe it in words. This project was an experiment in the power of words to connect human beings, and the simultaneous failure of language to completely embody the phenomena of color. It was a study in the practice of listening. It was also an engaged performative piece, based in my neighborhood, and portable enough to travel the world. In fall 2012, my approximately 100 color studies and micro-stories about color and kindness were on exhibition at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan.