“I asked a young White woman why she was studying social anthropology. She replied that she was hoping to go to Zimbabwe, and felt that she could help women there by advising them how to organize. The Black women in the audience gasped in astonishment. Here was someone scarcely past girlhood, who had just started university and had never fought a war in her life. She was planning to go to Africa to teach female veterans of a liberation struggle how to organize! This is the kind of arrogant, if not absurd attitude we encounter repeatedly. It makes one think: Better the distant armchair anthropologists than these ‘sisters’.”
Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh, Art/Life: One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece). For one year, the two artists remain tied together at the waist by an eight foot rope. They are not allowed to touch one another.
From a 1984 interview with Alex and Allyson Grey:
A&AG: Now that you’ve been tied together for almost a year, how do you feel about each other?
TH: I think Linda is the most honest person I’ve known in my life and I feel very comfortable to talk—to share my personality with her. That’s enough. I feel that’s pretty good. We had a lot of fights and I don’t feel that is negative. Anybody who was tied this way, even if they were a nice couple, I’m sure they would fight, too. This piece is about being like an animal, naked. We cannot hide our negative sides. We cannot be shy. It’s more than just honesty—we show our weakness.
LM: Tehching is my friend, confidant, lover, son, opponent, husband, brother, playmate, sparring partner, mother, father, etc. The list goes on and on. There isn’t one word or one archetype that fits. I feel very deeply for him.
