Sheryl Oring, Brooklyn NY

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Writing Home, 2006

I Wish to Say, 2005

Artist's blurb

Writing Home

2006. Edition of 20, 8 x 9-1/2 inches, 28 pages is a limited edition book made in conjunction with a series of performances by Sheryl Oring at the Eldridge Street Project in New York City.

The work explores the connection between place, language and memory, particularly in reference to the American immigrant experience. For this project, Oring set up a portable office at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, built in 1887 and now a nonprofit cultural center, and invited participants to dictate letters to their ancestors. Using carbon paper and a vintage typewriter, Oring typed participants’ responses, gave the original to the interviewee, and kept a duplicate for her archive and this book. Oring is continuing to perform Writing Home at venues such as the International Center in New York City.

Published in 2006, in an edition of 18, each book features an original Polaroid photograph of the Eldridge Street Synagogue or the surrounding neighborhood on the cover, which is covered in beige linen bookcloth. Inside, the three-panel portfolio features—

1) a hand-typed introduction
2) 43 letters dictated during performances at the Eldridge Street Project in 2005
3) a flag-bound book featuring 11 Polaroid photos of the Eldridge Street Synagogue and the surrounding neighborhood.

The inside pockets are made out of pages from a Yiddish dictionary and a Chinese-language volume listing books permitted for publication by Communist censors. Oring used this paper to create a sculpture that was exhibited at the Eldridge Street Project when she did her Writing Home performance there. It makes reference to some of the reasons people left their homelands and settled in the Lower East Side neighborhood where the synagogue stands.

The book measures 7.25 x 5.5 inches and closes with two leather ties. It was bound by Jamie Munkatchy of the Booklyn Artists Alliance.

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I Wish to Say

Artist is secretary to the people in traveling public art show

I wish to say, a traveling performance by artist Sheryl Oring, will be featured at various locations around the United States in 2005-06. For this work, Oring sets up a portable public office, complete with a
manual typewriter, and engages visitors in a discussion. She poses various questions that relate to the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment: speech, press, assembly, religion and petition.

Questions may include:
—Have you encountered limits to your rights of free expression?
—Are books dangerous?
—What does freedom mean to you?
—What’s the proper relationship between religion and government?
—Should newspapers withhold content that might be offensive?

Oring listens intently, then types up answers word for word. The results of these interviews will be used for an exhibition and a book.

The genesis of this concept is a multidisciplinary art project that
Oring began in 2004. The first phase of “I wish to say” addressed the right of petition. Oring asked people across the country: “If I were the President, what would you wish to say to me?” The answers were typed on postcards -- the originals were sent to the White House, while she kept carbon copies. In 2004, Oring traveled more than 4,000 miles and typed nearly 1,000 postcards to the President. The project drew significant media attention, and in September 2004, Peter Jennings selected Oring as ABC World News Tonight’s “Person of the Week.”

In summer 2005, Oring expanded the project to include questions about all five freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Her first series of public performances took place at the South Street Seaport in New York City in conjunction with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s artist studio program.

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Artist's blurb

Sheryl Oring is a Brooklyn-based artist and writer. She recently received a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation and is the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the European Journalist’s Program at the Free University Berlin.

This page is maintained by Booklyn Staff.