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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
Copyright ©
Di11y Da11y
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