Sarah and Nanette in Instanbul

translationandconversion.com

Translation and Conversion:

A Meditation on the Everyday in Three Parts

Nanette Yannuzzi-Macias ● Sarah Schuster
İz Öztat ● Ian Warren ● Suat Ogut

with Amy Giovanna Rinaldi, Sarah Krugman, Hilary Zarabi Aazam.

March 3-20, 2009 Play Gallery
Istanbul, Turkey

The quotidian is that which binds the enormous to the infinitesimal,
the obliterated to the revered.

The central dilemma of Translation and Conversion: A Meditation of the Everyday in Three Parts, exists within the enactment of a series of performances that speak of our desire to celebrate the liminal, repetitious, and hypnotic actions of the quotidian as they unfold within the home. At the same time we're inviting viewers and participants to question why this historically idealized icon the home, a witness to generations of collective dreams and desires, has become the site of an increasingly stealthy and pervasive anxiety.

How does the notion of home—as the necessary architecture of human existence—reflect the social and political policies that shape it? Is it possible to empower this space by recognizing its unique qualities and therefore its potential? As the media funnels fear into every aspect of contemporary life, is there a space that we can consider private? Is home an action or intention? What we're discovering through this work is that the everyday, as seen through the lens of the quotidian, is not some notion of idyllic bliss but rather a powerful indicator of the health of a species—a barometer of its external skin.