Public bench message

For me, the public bench, before being a place to rest, is a meeting place, where we gather to chat. Some people stay there to observe what is going on around them, the bench is for some a place of reflection, but the bench was above all for me the place of long discussions. I also think that as well as being a place of oral expression, the bench is a means of written expression, where we often find words, drawings, telephone numbers engraved. This is what interests me in the public bench. During the pandemic, like all other public spaces, the white one was deserted. Therefore, the long discussions or reflections that took place there have also disappeared. For this work, I wanted to make a nod to all these messages recorded on the public benches by writing my phone number on the bench. My phone number is not unique. It is a poem that had been read many times in Spain in homage to the victims of covid, but beyond this homage to the victims, it seems to me that the poem expresses very well these discussions and reflections disappeared from public spaces in times of pandemic.

Así como del fondo de la música
brota una nota
que mientras vibra crece y se
adelgaza
hasta que en otra música enmudece,
brota del fondo del silencio
otro silencio, aguda torre, espada,
y sube y crece y nos suspende
y mientras sube caen
recuerdos, esperanzas,
las pequeñas mentiras y las grandes,
y queremos gritar y en la garganta
se desvanece el grito:
desembocamos al silencio
en donde los silencios enmudecen.

Silencio, Octavio Paz