This Progress - Tino Sehgal

Notes: This poem is related to the performance, impermanent art "This Progress" by Tino Sehgal - a choreographed conversation in the Guggenheim Art Museum where the visitors walk up the spiral ramp talking with people of ascending ages prompted with the question "what is progress?" The piece had no physical form - just dialogue and movement - highlighting the fragility of human connection and knowledge transfer. The exchanges were never recorded, so only exist in memory. There were no actors involved, just real people. See poem on my page for a photo of the venue. (There is also an inadvertent but not inappropriate nod to "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns I realised after writing. I quite like the echo, so I kept it in.) I do not matter in the scheme but someone like me is required this may be everyone's journey someone will always be the most and the least just as significance is conjecture we all play the game of engagement ~ but does anyone matter once they move on? I was never there, so I never cried I never answered the question nor did I walk the ramp I saw no faces wasn't led by hand or gesture wasn't changed or indifferent I didn't come out the other side no spiral occurred, for me not on the day I wasn't there but ethereal moments happen whether designated or fated caught in haste or missed... when I've hesitated stop me on the stairs ask me a question take the briefest time to linger for a moment of connection to exist in memory tell me precisely, where are we? then and now absorbed somehow taken in absolved of sin gift me human connection name it art