A Limited Ticket Engagement
Work Exchange
2011, Open Engagement, art and social practice conference. Portland OR.
"A Limited Ticket Engagement" is a study of the transitional zone joining the outside of an institution and the inside of an institution: the entrance. I proposed to trade places with ticket takers in various organizations. I would be briefly trained, then give the ticket taker a reverse 'ticket' back to the outside world. This proposition was for an exchange in which the worker would continue to be paid for taking a break, and I would profit by framing the act as an art work.
Upon embarking on this process I found it difficult to find an organization that would agree to the project in its original form. The various ways of saying "no" pointed towards institutional methods of shaping that transitional zone.