In Witness, the viewer is configured as accomplice to the performance event, a ritual in which the tenuous mantle (or blindfold) of power is borrowed, trafficked, and stolen.

The Witness is asked to act, to sign their name, testifying that they have willingly taken part.  The question then lingers: in what, exactly, have they taken part?

This piece was developed in collaboration with performers Kai Hazelwood, Sonia Oleniak, and Michelle Lai, with input from hundreds of individual participant-witnesses.

It was part of a series of performance works addressing the United States military and CIA torture practices in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

“[Witness] turns compliant spectators into accountable witnesses.”    
 –Dr. Marcela Fuentes, Northwestern University (full review)

"Your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only."
–Walt Whitman, To a Stranger

Exhibition history:

• 2014: Hemispheric Institute Encuentro, PHI Centre, Montreal, Canada

• 2012: Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival (M:ST 6), Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• 2011: 3 x 2 x 3 # 1, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (info)

• 2011: UCLA Dept. of World Arts and Cultures MFA Upstarts Series

• 2011: TOO MUCH! A Queer Performance Marathon, Dance Mission, San Francisco, curated by Keith Hennessy

• 2010: Catalytic: Networks/Community/Participation, California State University, Long Beach

• 2010: POW!POW!POW! action art festival, San Francisco

Writings

Platform 6.1: Spectatorship and Participation  (Autumn 2011)

Review by Dr. Marcela Fuentes