Mac Val, Mother & Son, 7 min, Photo: Miki Nitadori, Feb 2016
Mac Val, Husband & Wife, 2 min, Photo: Miki Nitadori, Jan 2016
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Mac Val, welcoming staff, 5 min, Photo: Miki Nitadori, Jan 2016
Mac Val, Son & mother, 4 min, Photo: Miki Nitadori, Jan 2016
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Timelesshugs at Mac Val
We began working at Mac Val (Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne) on November 2015 to February 2016.
Differently from our two previous works, we invited other people.
Initially, via an online dating site, from 1000 contacts, and many promises, we were able to have 6 participants. During this work, in November 2015, a terrorist attack happened in Paris. Timelesshugs was largely praised criticized in the following month. Some people felt that nothing could ever replace their loved ones and were very angry, others found timelesshugs a great conceptual work and what the society needed at that moment.
After the first interventions, we begin inviting other people to appropriate the actions. No matter how many people said they liked our work, finding participants was a difficult task. We invited friends, and also began inviting visitors on the spot, with the help of people who worked in the museum exhibition space.
Working in this museum was interesting, as it is mainly a place for people to see artworks. We had to find the way for the action to relate with this work and the space. From end of December onward, we decided that the form of timelesshugs should be mainly standing up, and sitting for the people who got tired during the action. The places that timelesshugs took place were decided with the participants. Many people were looking for an explication panel, and wondered if this was a work of art or they were accidentally, and uncommonly, seeing people behave like this. From the time of Mac Val, the audiences began to mimic the action of participants.
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