Dream Garden

Performance: March 25, 2005

Installation: March 25, 2005— April 16, 2005

Polvo Gallery

Chicago, IL

Jesus Macarena-Avila was curating a show at Polvo Gallery called “Magic Show: Returning to the Organic.”

 

He asked me to create something for the show, and I came up with an installation that would be created by those who attended the opening. After being transformed with a bit of magic, the whole display was left in the gallery for four weeks.

 

As people came into the gallery, I taught them how to make paper roses. Once they had done this, they planted them in the garden— two wooden plots filled with dirt. 

 

At one point in the evening, the lights went down, except for a spotlight on me. I proceeded to pull 200 rose pedals from my mouth, before selecting one paper rose from the dirt, and lighting it on fire.  In a flash, the paper rose became a real rose, and I planted it back in the garden, where it remained.