THE TAPESTRY OF HOPE is a poem
that we composed for our commissioned, multimedia installation, THE THREADS
THAT BIND US - EARTH ELEGIES. This installation was part of the AISHET HAYIL/WOMAN
OF VALOR exhibition (1993-94) at Yeshiva University Museum in NYC.
It was written as an interactive component which invited the viewer to be
a participant in this site-specific installation. Those who chose to participate
were asked to add their hand by tying a knot onto a tapestry, while perhaps
giving a momentary pause to contemplate the future well being of the Earth..
In the spirit of enlarging our collaboration and the interactive element of
our work, we asked visitors to our DIALOGUES WITH THE DEITY solo show to create
their own unique statements. The poem was broken up into thirty-two phrases
that were then put onto magnetic metallic strips and placed randomly on a
lectern-like structure. The results varied not only in their expressions,
but in their physical configurations as well. A sampling of these were documented
as part of the evolving process of the installation.
When we created our own website
in 1994, THE TAPESTRY OF HOPE became one of the first pieces of interactive
literature on the World Wide Web. Visitors to our poem page can, once again,
transpose the order of the phrases and when satisfied, email their poem, which
becomes part of an international electronic archive.
In our installation, IN THE BEGINNING, part of the
ELEMENTS exhibition (1998-99) at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Frank
Lloyd Wright's Barnsdall Art Park, poems submitted via the Internet were printed
out and placed within a book -- EVOLUTION: A TAPESTRY OF HOPE.
In the spirit of
enlarging our collaboration, we ask that you become a co-creator with us
by using phrases from our poem to create your own unique statement.
