longva+carpenter reveal their Hunger
May 23, 2011
Collaborative team Longva + Carpenter presents Hunger, a new durational performance. Hunger uses the familiarity of the dinner table to isolate and augment the subtext of small talk between intimate pairs. Two women sit motionless, looking at each other from across a bare table. The women are physically connected by a banded form; their arms are linked in a single tube, as if they are wearing one piece of clothing. The knitted band suggests warmth and coziness, but also becomes a shared straitjacket, confining each to the unrelenting mirroring of the other. In this heightened visual metaphor, each woman has only a single sentence to offer. One is desperate for attention and approval (“Is it good?”), the other is withholding (“If I don’t say anything, it’s good”). Each woman is therefore isolated in her proximity to the other. Exploring the myriad relationships between two people: lovers, parent/child, teacher/student, friends, colleagues, clerk/client, Hunger considers all the ways we cannot communicate, but long to connect.