Culture

The emptiness of full pockets, The Blue Oyster, Tuesday, March 22, 2011.
The sombre white walls of the Blue Oyster further added to Altagracia’s performance of The emptiness of full pockets last Tuesday. Performers stood completely still as persons dressed in contamination suits filled their pockets with a chemical liquid which, dependent on your body temperature, would expand and harden. I stared with a sense of abandon at a crowd of amused faces as my pockets were filled with S-FOAM 130, a casting solution. A sense of vulnerability tickles your spine as you feel this strange sticky solution bursting through the seams of your pockets and solidifying. There were many different variations of the foam and the way in which it grew, some of which resembled milk, others resembling candle wax. The result of this performance was the appearance of these beautiful “filled” pockets on pieces of clothing.