Surabhi Saraf’s FOLD (Live) (2011) is a series of live choreographed performances in varied public spaces. In this series a group of volunteer performers ritualistically fold clothing in sync with one another. Though planned, the performance appears spontaneously before an accidental audience intermixed with informed viewers.
The weekly performances, which began on September 11, 2011 have taken place in architecturally diverse locations around San Francisco, including the Federal Building and sites at Golden Gate Park. The performances reflect on and activate uneventful everyday tasks through slow, timed movements. Folding clothes — one of the most mundane daily tasks — is elevated to a balletic experience. The act of folding is ubiquitous in its necessity and, in many ways, egalitarian in its sweep: everyone folds clothes. It also reflects on the few remaining tasks unmediated by technology. Presumably you could wear your Bluetooth while folding laundry, while texting and surfing the Internet. If so, you might be missing something as simple, and necessary, as downtime.
The final of four performances was staged in a downtown pedestrian plaza at Market and Montgomery Streets on October 2. The performers sat evenly spaced on low steps usually occupied by weekday bike messengers. Over the course of twenty-minutes or so, each removed layers of clothing against the brisk wind of early fall. First scarves, then sweatshirts, then pullovers were carefully removed and systematically folded in time until the performers were all stripped down to base layers of white t-shirts and neutral pants. The process then began in reverse. A captive audience seemed fascinated by the unexpected spectacle of the performance, with its hints of private domesticity, in the midst of a public square.
Most onlookers wore bemused looks of curiosity. Others wore the amused looks of the informed. Many held up cameras and phones to take pictures and videos — this seemed incongruent with the work, though not unexpected. In a very short span of time, we have become conditioned to watching live footage rather than just watching. The result is that we have forfeited our authentic experience of the present. With this work, the artist uses what might conceivably be considered the most visually unremarkable task imaginable to recapture our attention.
