| S&W3: |
What were the origins of "Badge of Honor?"
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| P.O.: |
My work comes out of a quest to find the truth about life and circumstances in general in society. Let me give you a
picture of where I was as an individual at the time [1995] and how that led me to create the piece. Looking back, there
were a lot of events that contributed to the piece. At that time, there was a lot of attention to the Million Man March.
I was listening to that and thinking about how African American men were coming back to a central position in their
communities; communities that have been historically led by women. Men were gathering and showing that they were making
up for the time of their absence. At the same time, I had just had my second son, so I was interested in figuring out a
way of relating to the idea of having a child, and a boy in particular, and how the change in my role affected my immediate
community and my family.
I began an internal dialogue about these issues. In general, my work grows out of things that worry me as a civil servant and
things that make me think about my relationship to what's out there in society. I then compare those concerns with what other
people are doing. I see social events as barometers for what I do. That's what motivates me to make visual public statements.
Also at that time, I was visiting social service agencies and neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey. I was taking my slide
projector into prisons and showing a lot of prisoners and counselors my work. I was particularly interested in inaccessibility.
On the one hand, you were seeing lots of men getting together in Washington, and then the other hand there were men who had
absolutely no access to that community in prisons. I was interested in these extremes.
I had one conversation in particular with a group of young boys whos parents were in jail. There was dead silence in the room.
This was a topic that people didn't want to talk about. I left the prison and was so affected by what I'd scene. In general,
I don't want to do work about things that that people already know the answer to. I thought that if I could find a way to
connect these kids with their parents . . .[trail off].
One of the incarcerated men I spoke with was Nelson Sr.. He came forward and said that he wanted to work with his son. I was
taken aback and said, this is it: I want to do a piece about these people.
The relationship between this father and son, the Million Man March, and my family; the piece became a metaphor for the three
discourses that were happening in my mind at the time. That's how it happened.
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| S&W3: |
What was the process of working with Nelson Sr. and Jr. like? How did you go about recording them for the video portion
of the installation?
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| P.O.: |
Irene Sosa worked with me on the video. We managed to cut through lots of red tape and get permission to video the father
in his cell. We went back and forth videoing the father and the son for three weeks. At 1pm, we would go to the father's cell,
put a white sheet behind him and recorded the conversation. I stood in front of him while videoing. I suggested a few words
to start the conversation, like "freedom" and "absence," and then the father just started talking about these concepts, he
really became a philosopher.
At 3pm when the son would come out of school, we would show him the raw footage, unedited.
We put a white sheet behind the son and recorded his reactions and his responses to his father's video. We would then go
back and play the tape to his father. We accumulated 45 hours of conversation total and cut it down to 18 minutes for the
installation.
Each member of the family looked at the video tape before it was shown in the installation. The mother viewed it as well.
It was the very first time that I had had to share the final product and responsibility of a project with someone. Up until
that moment I had been creating work where I was the author and had the final say up until the exhibition. But this time I
elt they had some kind of responsibility.
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| S&W3: |
"Badge of Honor" was first shown in downtown Newark.
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| P.O.: |
The piece was shown first at a store front in Newark. The audience was a group of people who knew the kid and knew what
was going on. The son came with the mother to the opening night. They were very proud. But the sentiment was also mixed.
It was contradictory. If your father is in jail, in some ways that is something you should be proud of; it means you have
power in your community.
The father accumulated some points by making the piece. There were articles in local newspapers that made their way to the
jail and his counselors. He accumulated points and was moved to a half-way ward (which means you're still in jail, but you're
allowed to step out). Just before the exhibition closed in December, the father saw the show. Then afterwards, I talked to the
people in the prison, he was given permission to come to New York City and we held a conversation between the father, son,
mother and me at a gallery talking about what the work meant to them, to me and to the general public.
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| S&W3: |
How do you think the work read differently once it was moved to the Newark Museum, some months later? How do you think
those two different contexts influenced how viewers responded to the piece? Did it read differently to you?
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| P.O.: |
The piece became a work of art. When it was in the storefront, there was no discussion about whether it was a work of art.
It was something that moved beyond the limits of what art can do. When it moved into the museum, it became just a work of
art. I wanted it to be more of a spontaneous circumstance. I liked the idea that you might be carrying your groceries
home and happen on the piece. You would be completely taken by surprise. When it's a museum, people are ready to go and
look at art. Their minds are fixed as to what they expect to see. There is a kind of a distancing yourself from reality.
There are also other factors such as the difference in lighting. In the storefront, you walk around other people who have
family members in prison, you see children, you see the past and future. But nonetheless, it is a work of art. The piece
has traveled around the world. Every where it goes, it has a different reading. |
| S&W3: |
How did you go about gathering and selecting materials for the installation?
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| P.O.: |
I used the son's bedroom as the foundation for what I wanted to do and I just took off from there. My decision was based
on real documentation. When I saw a photograph of his grandfather on his bed, I took that and printed it on the pillow.
When the son had two postcards, then I would just create wallpaper of postcards. So I just exaggerated. There's a
tremendous difference between exaggerating and stereotyping. I wanted to create disbelief.
If you look at this work, there is an intellectual depth to it that is sometimes missing in stereotypical portrayals in the
media. I wanted to show the honest, the naked truth, but at the same time, my interpretation of how I saw the event. As I
went into the son's bedroom, I was capturing a moment in the son's life. I started exaggerating as a way of creating a
visible multiplication of objects.
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| S&W3: |
Students responding to your work in Seeing & Writing have debated whether or not the installation can be called
fact or fiction, or a blend of both.
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| P.O.: |
It is based on a factual story, but I also create a lot of saturated pieces because I sense a lot of anxiety in the
community. I'm interested in passing that anxiety onto the viewer. If you look at the multiplicity of elements, the
saturation of objects, you have a sense of anxiety as well. There's a visual anxiety that the work has, that's important
to me. I go in with my own personal quest with it. I try to figure out how I am in relationship to all this. When I start
to peel the layers, it creates such an anxiety in me that translates that into the visual.
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| S&W3: |
Some students wondered why you chose a mirrored floor.
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| P.O.: |
When you visit the installation, you see that you are not allowed to walk into the bedroom, it's kind of a sacred space.
What I wanted to do with the floor was multiply the images. Everything in the room multiplies. Also, it helps communicate
the point that this kid is walking on eggshells. Everything is so pristine and so immaculately placed, if you stepped in,
you could break this kid's dream. There's such an incredible vulnerability in this kid's life.
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| S&W3: |
In college-writing courses, we talk a lot about the importance of drafting and revising? How does that factor into
your creative process?
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| P.O.: |
For this piece, I waited and waited and waited before I found a subject. I couldn't figure out what I really wanted to
do with the community and what they wanted me to do. I usually sit down and listen a lot. Inspiration comes from people
I talk to. I had about three months to actually work on the details. The surface of the son's room is totally saturated
with details and that's what took three months. The actual putting the piece together took two weeks on site.
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| S&W3: |
What is it that helps you get out of the kind of creative block you described?
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| P.O.: |
I walk a lot. I figure out a way in order to work to create an alignment when the spiritual, emotion and physical are
out of place. It's hard to produce work when one is out of place. I walk a lot. I go out and ride my bicycle. It gives
me an opportunity to look at the outside world. It also seems to be an extension of the inside. I walk a lot my
inspiration comes form that, walking and connecting. I get to the point of exhaustion, that's when little by little,
I start aligning things.
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| S&W3: |
You have referred to your work as "social architecture." What do you mean by that? |
| P.O.: |
I am interested in the social architecture of space. There's a very strong and defined social architecture in different
communities. All communities are different and they are constructed in very different ways, socially. I've always been
interested in social relationships. What role does the man who owns the local bodega play in the social architecture of
a community? Women hold communities together, pastors hold communities together; they are all different bits and pieces
that hold the communities together.
I currently have a piece at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia based on three years of work with foster kids.
The minute you walk from the reception into the gallery, you know you are in a different space. I am interested in translating
the social architecture of a community into a different space.
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| S&W3: |
How is "Badge of Honor" similar to or different from your most recent work at the Institute for Contemporary Art? |
| P.O.: |
I'm now working on showing places in museums and galleries, but those places are intact replicas of the spaces in the community. At the ICA, I just created a courtroom and a Department of Human Services office space. There's always a twist on reality (there's a bathroom in the middle of the courtroom, for example) but the basic idea is very much there.
One night, while I was working on the Human Services agency installation, I set of an alarm by mistake. A policeman came in and asked me for an ID. "I'm the artist," I said. "An artist of what?" he said. "The exhibition," I said. "What exhibition? I don't believe this is true. Let me make a phone call." And with that he walked toward the desk I had recreated and tried to make a phone call. He picked up the phone and of course there was no dial tone. I couldn't believe it. This was so real to this man; it was just pure fake, it was a reproduction of the space. I want to alter people's reality. I want them to come out of the world and walk into the world again.
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| S&W3: |
You have been involved in the field of social work, the art world and have created a blend of both in your work. What advice do you have for college students trying to carve out their career paths?
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| P.O.: |
One has to listen to what you want to do. It's not always right in front of you. It's always in the periphery. If you want to do something, it's usually been there all along at your side. |
