Alicia Framis

Born in 1967 in Barcelona (ES)
Lives and works in Amsterdam (NL)

Murmurs

2000
Wall, papers, invisible ink
Dimensions variables
Year of Purchase: 2000

At the dawn of the 21st century, Alicia Framis’ work illustrates the urban changes and morphological, geographical and social transformation occurring territorially. In a context of ever-increasing individualization, the city is tending to scale collective experience down to mere visual consumption, and an exclusive spectacle. In challenging and questioning the role of art in the public place, and borrowing her vocabulary from fashion, architecture and design, Alicia Framis creates a series of ephemeral interventions offering the conditions for a new experience of exchange and communication. From the moveable platform in which people can meet and have exchanges (Loneliness in the City_, 1999-2000), to the creation of a protection zone for political refugees (Immunity Square_, 2000), to the reintroduction of death into the urban space (Metro with Cemetery, Paris, 1999), and the living monument involving the participation of 300 people (Walking Monument, 1997), Alicia Framis’ actions and environments call for a new form of perception, an intuitive reaction on the part of the onlooker. The installation Murmurs emphasizes the interaction between architecture and the organization of human relations. In front of a wall with holes in it, the public is invited to share and confide their innermost thoughts by writing down their secret using invisible ink and then slipping it into one of the many holes. When the intervention is over, the ‘monument’ holding all these anonymous murmurs is plastered over and the messages remain inaccessible.

^{Gaidig Lemarie}