Original Exhibition Text:

You have to want to quit. The first step to moving on is letting go. Time heals all wounds. One day at a time. Tomorrow is another day.

The clichéd rhetoric of self help is an odd pairing with performance, but the two intersect in that they demand a degree of belief. Thatiana Oliviera and Miranda Maynard have backgrounds in photography and use forms of performance as starting points for the work on display in This Will Help. Both artists find a sense of relief in the permissions and strictures inherent to establishing a set of rules for a performance. Consequently, the works lead dual lives, one created for and by the artist, and another which viewers are invited to experience.

Miranda Maynard creates sets of instructions for scenarios, sometimes based in memories of childhood urges, and acts them out in front of the camera. Hers are not, however, before-and-after shots. Each image appears to the viewer in medias res, obscuring notions of triumph or failure in order to privilege the act itself.

Thatiana Oliviera’s practice often requires a model or acquaintance to act out a process she has defined. Oliviera’s busts are constructed by hugging and choking paper bags around her models until she is satisfied with the likeness. Each step in the process after the initial sitting is designed to move the object further away from a specific body. In an untitled project on display in this show, Oliviera contacted people whom she considered “distant,” either geographically distant, emotionally distant, or those whom she merely hadn’t thought of in a while. She asked them to sleep in and send her a shirt, which she then wore to bed. The collected sleeping clothes were bound with muslin, and arranged so that viewers can see the rolled garments peeking out from the white cotton–giving just a hint of the biography of each object.