LIFE EXCHANGE was a one-week performance that toook place in New York City from Oct. 31-Nov 6. 2007. Based in the private Chelsea apartment of author Nancy Weber - the first recorded New York citizen to have conducted a Life Exchange - the project invited applicants to perform actual Life Exchanges and thereby exchange lives with other individuals for a time.
In total, 10 individuals responded to the Open Call and performed a Life Exchange during the week. Each participant entered the apartment by ringing the bell and was subsequently guided through an interview session with two members of Wooloo living with Ms. Weber for the period. Following this initial interview, each of the participants was given a Life Exchange appointment and a detailed Life Exchange Questionnaire to fill out. Once the participant returned to the apartment for their actual Life Exchange, the participant was brought to a special room, re-dressed in a Life Exchange scrub and softly blindfolded. The same was done to the other participant undergoing the exchange and arriving hereafter. Wooloo then performed a ritual with the two participants. After the ritual, each participant was dressed in the other person’s clothes and was then escorted out of the apartment with this person's keys, phone, wallet - as well as Life Exchange Questionnaire with their new personal details and habits. It was then up to the individual participants to continue their Life Exchange however long they wanted to. And to documented - or not - in any way they wanted to.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
As a social performance work, LIFE EXCHANGE challenges the widespread notion of human distrust that is a reality in post-9-11 New York. Through its rituals and historical references, the exhibition aims to create its own micro-power structure. A structure that ultimately questions the - just as performative - production of fear and mistrust that has become the normal state of the surrounding society. The LIFE EXCHANGE exhibition is part of Wooloo's on-going work examining the construction of social reality. Where previous works have dealt directly with the mediated construction of immigration regimes and the movement of bodies over national borders - the focus of this performance is not on change of place, but rather on change of being. As it has been the case with previous Wooloo projects, LIFE EXCHANGE creates an experimental situation and attempts to engage viewers in direct participation and ultimately offering the possibility for an alternative mode of existence.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: http://www.dougfogelson.com Photo Florian Ludwig and Design Nancy Weber - The Life Swap, 1974
The project is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council Committee for Visual Arts.