A Staff for the Center of the World in Siberia
1995
Performance
Materials:
"Maybe I Will Do Nothing Visible in Yakutia. Certainly I cannot either take artwork there and leave it, nor make artwork there and bring it back to Tycho Brahe’s house in Copenhagen where we will all meet up. I will take tobacco and leave it as a private ceremony of adoption into [Eurasia](http://ensembles.mhka.be/ensembles/eurasia), but except for this sentence that will not be part of the art project. (It will instead be part of future art projects.) I will take a small mirror that I found in the flea market in Lisboa. It reflects evil thoughts and spirits back onto themselves. If I make a staff to represent the center of the world in Yakutsk, of what wood could it be? Birch, I suppose; because birch tea is good for your eyes and because “birch” originally means “bright” in every language (Kotsun’ wa)."[full text [here](http://ensembles.mhka.be/items/3168)] Read an account of Durham's quest in Siberia in his [text](http://ensembles.mhka.be/items/3934) for the [catalogue](http://ensembles.mhka.be/items/5012) of the [exhibition](http://ensembles.mhka.be/events/jimmie-durham-a-matter-of-life-and-death-and-singing) at M HKA.