DEMEURE(s) (2013/Paris)

Mora, a participatory performance in Conciergerie de Paris, reflects on how attention moves in spaces of precariousness. The white cube serves as a reconstruction of my prison cell in white paper. During the performance, I, positioned inside my white paper cage, doodled the idleness of prison. Simultaneously, the participants around me passed a red ball of yarn to each other, creating a network of forgetting. This doodle was the witness of my presence. The distance between me, imprisoned in my box, and my freedom, was ink and paper. I was arrested and they were free. Their performance filled the Conciergerie, a former Parisian prison, with playfulness.

The game within this participatory performance involved “players” taking a ball of yarn from one person and passing it to another, while keeping hold of one end. This created a network of red lines and formed the souvenir of their interactions. All the while, I synchronously drew the black line that remained separate from their souvenir. I had been charged with threatening national security for the act of protesting. They had not. It is absurd for precariousness to penetrate a field of attention that is alien to it.