Self-Talk, 2024

Self-Talk/ Bronx Museum of the Arts / June 14th, 2024

In the first iteration of Self-Talk, Bronx museum goers activated Kat Geng-Caraballo’s soft sculptures from two semi- enclosed booths. The pair of fabric figures—one emoting a peaceful joy, the other in a state of suffering—were sewn from the same inverted cloth to reflect two halves of a whole “Self.” 

In Self-Talk, participants explore the non-verbal ways in which we communicate our emotions to ourselves and the possibilities that these revelations may provide. After participants chose from characters Sunny Self and Sorrowful Self, they entered the booths for four minutes to puppeteer with minimal instructions offering free play. A pulley system carrying cards between booths, and stenciled suggestions indicating an array of mechanisms - a flower release, two lengthy shoelaces, an operating fan across a hinged door to invite the breeze, a closeable shade - created space for participants to improvise, play, and interact with each other and different parts of themselves.

Self-Talk asks: How do joy and suffering coexist in a moment? What do we create within the presence of both? How can we provide space and nurture both without invalidating the other?

The public engagements were filmed and audio was recorded from two tape cassettes within the booths.

This project was made possible thanks to Roz and Jerry Meyer and The Bronx Museum of the Arts.

Photos were taken by Argenis Apolinario at The Bronx Museum of Arts, Bronx, NY.

An excerpt from Khalil Gibran’s poem

The Prophet Sorrow and Joy

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the sesame well from which your
laughter rises often times filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is it not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find that it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.”

(Gibran 32)

Self-Talk is dedicated to my dear friend Sarah Mandel who was able to hold emotions, hers and those of others, with immense grace, presence, humor and tenderness.