Being Valued
A collaborative performance
Investigating a meaning of being valued.
performance, 2019 Dundee
I left gallery attendants with instructions that the discarded steel with the word Cherish cut out should go to whoever valued the work. The price? Whatever the work was worth to the purchaser. Gallery attendants let the work go without taking payment. Instead, they took down the purchaser's contact info. for me to collect payment later.
The experiment deepened into one of trust as several texts were exchanged and the purchaser experienced discomfort deciding what the existence of this work was worth for themselves. Payment was made eventually, after some back and forth and several pauses in the conversation over two months, and came with a poem in response to the work.
This experiment was not possible without the collaboration of the metal artist, and not complete without the purchaser. Which leaves the question: Might a way of being valued lie in a lived experience of connection?
