AWAY
AWAY begins with an accusation of sexual misconduct but withholds the event, evidence, and account that might explain it. The audience encounters a body made progressively available to view, a fixed institutional file, and the authority to make judgments about trust, privacy, supervision, and containment.
These judgments do not remain opinions. The institution converts them into consequences: visibility changes, privileges contract, posture and access are altered, and classifications accumulate on and around the body. As viewing apertures expand, more of the subject is exposed to more of the audience. The resulting treatment can then begin to look like evidence that the original judgment was correct.
The audience is granted extraordinary permission to observe but no reliable means of fully knowing the subject. AWAY asks what happens when incomplete information, institutional authority, collective scrutiny, and personal discomfort combine to produce certainty.
When does looking become inspection?
When does discomfort become evidence?
Does institutional authority make a judgment appear true?
If punishment changes how a body appears, can that altered appearance be used to justify the punishment?
What responsibility does each audience member bear for consequences the group collectively initiates but does not personally administer?
The viewer judges. The system processes. The body pays.
The Encounter
Entry & File Access
Sight & Agency
Inscription & Residual Space
The audience encounters only a body made progressively available to view, a fixed institutional file, and the authority to make judgments about trust, privacy, supervision, and containment.
Observation begins through restricted apertures. As the windows expand, more of the subject becomes visible to more of the group. Audience choices alter sightlines, access, and classification, while members become increasingly aware of one another watching, judging, and authorizing further exposure.
Observations and classifications accumulate directly on the performer’s body. After the performer is removed, the audience enters the residual space and confronts the physical record of its judgments.
Accumulation and Classification
1. The Fixed File
2. Public Labels
3. Body Writing
An static, unyielding baseline document provided upon entry that remains entirely unchanged throughout the entirety of the performance.
Institutional taxonomies displayed within the environment that absorb shifting interpretations and external administrative vocabulary.
Direct, cumulative observations written physically onto the subject, capturing real-time scrutiny and descriptive weight.
The critical distinction lies in the divergence of these records: while the official institutional file remains static, both the surrounding labels and the living body become increasingly burdened by layers of active interpretation.
The institution never describes its actions as sexual, humiliating, or brutal. It uses the neutral language of observation, documentation, classification, and security. Humiliation is not staged as a single act; it accumulates as the body is exposed, repositioned, annotated, and made to carry the audience’s judgments. The gap between administrative language and what it physically produces is central to the work.
Form: Durational participatory performance installation
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes
Audience: Group audience; capacity adapts to the host site. Visitors share a progressively expanding view of the subject.
Setting: Enclosed interior installation with controlled sightlines, expanding viewing apertures, and a freely navigable audience space.
Elements: Performer, fixed file, institutional labels, body writing, curtains or partitions, residual installation
Content: Nudity, close observation, evaluative language, body writing, and themes of classification
Status: In development
Adaptability: Audience capacity and spatial arrangement adapt to the host site, while the fixed file, institutional information system, progressive expansion of visibility, and cumulative classification process remain constant.
Currently seeking a development residency, workshop support, commissioning partner, or first public presentation.