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Young, Carey
Born 1970, ZimbabweLives in London
IN THE GALLERY
Conflict Management, 2003, Photo documentation of performance
In her performances, Carey Young investigates the spread of corporate branding techniques and interactions that are increasingly taking over the personal and public domains. Young appropriates these techniques, deconstructing them through a process of inhabitation. In Conflict Management, the services of a professional arbitrator are offered to students, gallery visitors, and passersby. Referring to the larger problem of conflict, and the necessity of agreement as the basis for social interaction, the performance points to the gap between dialogue and the law. It evokes Walter Benjamin’s critique of the violence inherent to the law, and his conception of “pure means” such as diplomacy.
PERFORMANCES
Conflict Management, 2008
Sunday, October 26, Union Square South
Performance with professional mediator:
10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
At the south end of Union Square, historically the site of political demonstrations and the place of a farmers’ market on other days, a small stall is set up in sight of the facades of high-rise luxury condominiums and multinational corporations. At the stall, the services of a professional mediator are made available to anyone who desires them, without charge, for the duration of a day.
In mediation, an impartial third-party mediator guides people who are involved in a dispute through a series of problem-solving steps to help them diffuse their conflict, communicate more effectively, and find their own solutions as an alternative to prolonged litigation or violence. Different from an arbitrator who makes a determination and decision for the parties—similar to a judge—the mediator does not make decisions nor render an opinion of any kind.
The piece references larger questions of conflict. As mediation is inherently concerned with the attempt to create peace, this tiny site (at the feet of a bronze statue of George Washington) alludes to notions of a peaceful utopia, but it seems vulnerable, dwarfed by the size and architecture of the surrounding environment. The site also offers poetic resonance: a tiny and temporary peace zone that will be dismantled all too soon.
Mediator: Elena Bayrock, Safe Horizon
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