and time. time goes on.... it stops (stops) who it wants.

An excerpt from Maps of City and Body: Shedding Light on the Performances of Denise Uyehara by Denise Uyehara

So, how am I to be accountable as a U.S. Citizen? What is my responsibility as an artist?

Three things: First, I believe my role is the same as if was before, during, and after any crisis. The artist’s role is to respond, as John Malpede of the Los Angeles Poverty Department once said. Responding begins the act of live discussion an interaction. IN Los Angeles, response to the unraveling of our civil liberties after September 11th was gradual at first, but is now alive and growing. Demonstrations, rallies, teach-ins, and artist gatherings have taken place across the country and the world. Artists and activists, as well as regular folks who had never demonstrated before, are taking to the streets. Together, we are reminded how important it is to speak up, to ask the necessary, difficult questions. We see how powerful our voices have become and also the risk involved in speaking up. Response is patriotic.

Secondly, performance provides a necessary vessel for remembering. As our rights get stripped away, and as people across the nation begin to censor themselves, it has become more important than ever to remember our individual stories, and to listen to the testimonies that remind us of how each person is a human being. These stories can be both real and imagined; how we remember is as important as “the facts”. Performance, and the larger category of art, provide a central site from which to remember what happened to our bodies and the bodies of our neighbors. What will our bodies tell of these times? Not the official history that goes down in pages of authority, but the history of those who found simple ways to resist and speak their conscience, who invented new ways to record their voices.

Finally, and most importantly, performance is transformative. It provides new ways of expressing or imagining a culture, situation, or struggle. It challenges us to imagine a new world in which to live. Performance gives us new ways of seeing. This might seem like a simple, poor, or even naïve point, but it is an important one. I must live each day with imagination and hope because those who came before me – my family and my community – took the time to imagine a better place for me. As a citizen of this world, this is the least I can do, for the generations that will come after me.

expression of struggle. resistance. response is patriotic. those are my bottom lines from this excerpt.