| One Sunday morning an old priest once asked the congregation if we knew the two simple words that were inscribed over
the Gate of Hell. With
the dramatic pause of a seasoned storyteller, he
said, "The
words are, If only..."
This project takes if only and considers its earthly
opposite:
I wish.
The initial idea was to record wishes from strangers,
edit them together, and send the final recording over a wireless
transmitter to radio receivers mounted inside seashells. This
entire project was set in the community center of San Diego's
Mission Valley Library. |
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| Allyson Green |
The
thought was that people would enter the room, hear sounds from the
shells, pick them up, and listen to the broadcast message from
within; a quiet roar from
a sampling
of humanity
instead
of that
from the sea.
Many people declined to participate in the project, often with a very
strong negative response. Their
reasons were pretty much the same. "I'm
working," replied one shopkeeper. Another
businessman at a used record store responded suspiciously, "I have nothing else to wish
for." I also had a few people say, "No thank you."
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| Heather Zornes-Almanza |
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There was one response which added an unanticipated dimension to this project.
It came in the form of a question from a random interviewee who asked, "What
is your wish?"
I thought
for an instant, after listening to many wishes for weeks and said, "My father. I wish I could speak with
my father again."
The woman looked at me for a brief moment from across the gulf that separates
space, time, and strangers, leaned across the counter and hugged me for
a healing moment.
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Teri Hodgkinson |
Loss and
vulnerability, that inexpressible numbing touch of death felt each time we lose someone we truly love, beyond despair, pain, and the terrible knowledge of our inevitable destiny; that condition of certain knowledge which is the common denominator of our humanity, joined
us for an instant.
I initially
thought this program was about the wishes we all make,
about
things we want for ourselves and possibly for a greater good. I
now see this work was about all that we have in common: Love,
Loss, Desire, Fear, and lastly Hope.
Beyond bi-pedalism and an opposable digit, it is what we wish, dream, aspire, and mourn, which defines us as human. It is the certain knowledge of our human limits which rousts us from the confines of the earth, which waits patiently to hold us in her arms again.
Peter Terezakis
Pacific
Beach, San Diego
September 19, 2003 |
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 Lara Segura
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