Nuit Blanche Piece: The Apology Project

What inspired your contribution to Nuit Blanche this year?
Thinking about the nature of guilt and apology and how we handle these as individuals and as a society was what made me come up with the Apology Project. What does it mean to say we are sorry when it is not accompanied by action? The Apology Project is a passive aggressive spectacle more then a sincere apology. Fifty-five people will congest the entrance of a tunnel while wearing brown paper bags over their bodies and personally apologizing to everyone who walks through. If these people were truthfully sorry they would stop obnoxiously congesting the tunnel and would go home and sleep instead of being disruptive for twelve hours. The piece exposes a double image that makes you question the sincerity behind the words “I am sorry.” It’s also a tongue and cheek reference to the notion that Canadians are overly apologetic.

What do you hope people will experience when they see it?
I hope this piece perplexes the audience and makes them laugh and think about guilt and apology, as well as resonates with them on an emotional and physical level. I also hope that the meaning of this work continues to grow with each new person who encounters it. It is way more interesting that way.

Nuit Blanche aside, what’s the most amazing, surreal 3 am experience you’ve ever had?
Tough call… you will have to decide. It’s either:

A) Roaming around the streets of Barcelona with my brother and dancing like maniacs in various nightclubs until we passed out. He woke up the next morning having lost his false teeth and we had no recollection of how.
B) Bringing my ex-husband, a life size puppet named Plus One, out to dance in a Polish nightclub and having women flock around him. They would actually steal him away to rock out on the dance floor with him.

Where will you be at dawn on Sunday?
To be precise, in the Liberty Market Building Atrium Corridor until 7:00 am and in bed under half a million blankets with a hot water bottle and a pot of ginger tea afterwards.

You’ve got $100,000 to spend on throwing your ideal art event-what do you do?
What a great thing to dream about! The big difference a large budget makes with the type of art I do is to allow me to increase the scale and production value. It was great to work with the support of the Nuit Blanche team because I was able to hire 55 performers as opposed to begging the usual 5 suspects and paying them whatever money I could scramble together. So, in the amazing instance that I had $100,000 to spend on making an art event, I would restage a performance I did a few years ago that involved getting married to a life size male puppet named Plus One. In this case my husband and I would pop out of an 8 feet tall delicious wedding cupcake and be carried out by gorgeous half-naked male models while an entire jazz band played “here comes the bride.” Oh and of course Sacha Baron Cohen, Sarah Silverman (with mustache) and Andy Samberg would give wedding speeches… and Peaches would play the song for our first dance. Ok, I probably blew like a million dollars at this point but who cares, it’s a fantasy! Oh and in the fantasy everybody would love the work and everything would be happy ever after until, of course, it wasn’t and all hell broke loose because I realized my husband was a dummy. Wait, this is turning into a crappy fantasy. Hum. Can we start over?