While reading Lewis Hyde's "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property," I was fascinated by his examination of the effects of both our total immersion in a market economy and the myth of the free market on our views about gifts and our abilities to give and receive them.
In this project I created an inviting space in the gallery containing beautiful presented fresh flowers. Museum guests are invited to take one of these flowers with them when they leave the museum, if they will agree to do two things: first, to make a detour from their intended route when leaving the museum for their next destination; second, along this detour, to give the flower to a stranger who they feel would benefit from this unexpected act of generosity.
I have not chosen to document what happens once the flowers leave the Museum. As in life, we rarely learn how far our kindnesses (or unkindness) extend. In this project I choose to make it easier for others to be kind, and leave the rest to fate. The gift I receive in return is the knowledge that somewhere in the city, during the period of the exhibition, some strangers have connected through acts of unexpected giving and receiving.
2015 Taipei Fine Arts Museum
2014 Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
2011 Brooklyn Museum, New York
2009 Lyon Biennial