Watch an in-depth visual description of this work by multimedia artist Sharon Hayes.
Five loudspeakers stand facing five posters, reciting letters to unnamed lovers. The letters are highly emotional and intimate fraught with despair desire and longing. She speaks about her sense of helplessness during the unfolding invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the trauma and dislocation of living in a moment of war as a U.S. citizen and feeling dislocated from her daily life.
The letters do not specify the sexuality of the writer or their lover. For the performances, however, Hayes has said that she ‘butched myself up even more than usual because I didn’t want the love to be read as heteronormative.’
This audio description was written and recorded by Chris Timms, Retail Assistant at Tate.
This film has been created as part of the Terra Foundation For American Art Series: New Perspectives.
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