Please Wait - Wait - Stop

Materials are water, bucket, brush, Korean script, hot concrete and evaporation.

The title phrase was written on a public street on a small island off the coast of South Korea, using a broom and water. The act was carried out as fast a physically possible, running short distances with the heavy bucket of seawater between bursts of hurried writing activity. While writing the words in Hangul, I called the phrases out in English simultaneously, becoming increasingly breathless from my efforts. The white pavement held a great deal of ambient heat from the hot day and I had difficulty recording each phrase before it began to evaporate. The speed of the evaporation underlined the meaning of the spoken and written text and lent the activity more intensity. Clearly there was no time to linger, all traces of the activity were completely gone within minutes.

project background

This work was created as part of Nine Dragon Heads International Environment Art Symposium 2007. I was referring to a recent history environmental protest against the Saemangeum Embankment completed in 2006. The protest movement attempted and failed to save significant coastal wetlands from being destroyed by a massive development project that spanned 25 years. Saemangeum is located in the southwest part of Korea and (was) considered one of the world's five most ecologically important mudflats. This work was a performance action on Gogeunsam Island group, in close proximity to Saemangeum. More information about the embankment project and the wider Nine Dragons event can be found on Nine Dragon Heads website

The futility of the performance act is (ironic, melancholic) reflection on the circumstances of Saemangeum, as is the use of seawater to write a disappearing message.

The text used

The shifts in language raise deceptively simple questions about who an intended audience for a particular message is. I wrote in one language while speaking in another.

The translation of these three phrases in Korean graduated in intensity also. The first was formal and polite, asking courteously for forbearance in the respectful way you would address an elder.

please wait.

the second is phrased more casually and informally, speaking with less respect, an instruction given to an equal.

wait.

the last is imperative, it is abrupt and actually rude in tone, an order not a request.

Stop!