KEEP IN MIND (ADDIS ABABA), 2012

I wasn’t present for the carrying out of this piece – but that was almost the point.

During the exhibition in Jan Meda I was back home in the snow in Berlin – thinking about Addis Ababa where I had been a week earlier.

My aim was to place myself into the consciousness of those who were taking part in the exhibition. Over the two weeks that I spent in Ethiopia I collected small stones – tiny pebbles. I selected each one with a particular participant in mind. For every stone there was an accompanying letter – each one was individual; describing where I had found the pebble and that I thought it would suit them perfectly. I requested that they place the stone into their shoe each time they went to the exhibition – and to allow the irritation of the pebble to remind them to remember me.

The envelopes containing the letters and the stones were handed out on the evening before the opening on an individual basis. Later on, in the still snowy Berlin, I got told stories of reading letters next to campfires and conversations that were had explaining to people that they had a stone in their shoe – and why.

Some of the pebbles were returned back to me as I had requested. Most people kept their letter.